Audley Earl Melhado

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

Attorney Audley Earl Melhado was retained to conduct a land sale for the complainant. He advised the complainant that the sale was completed and that he held approximately $5 million in proceeds, but never remitted any of the roughly $4 million due and became uncontactable. The Disciplinary Committee, proceeding in his absence, found him guilty of professional misconduct on all five complaints, breaching Canons 1(b), IV(r), (s) and VII(ii). Applying Bolton v Law Society and treating the matter as one of dishonesty, the Committee struck his name off the Roll, ordered costs of $100,000 and restitution of $4 million.

Duties found breached:

• No improper communication with the court
• No taking unfair advantage
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• No improper use of client money

Aggravating factors:

• Kept the Complainant out of his funds for several years
• Egregious nature of the matter
• Respondent never attended any hearing and filed no response
• Failed to appear at sanction hearing with no plea in mitigation