M. Melbourne Silvera

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

The attorney received $318,575 in settlement of the complainant's personal injury claim in January 1996, of which $248,304.50 was due to her after fees. He failed to pay her despite repeated requests and improperly disbursed/converted the funds due to accounting breakdowns at his firm. He only repaid the sum with interest ($302,591.35) in July 1997, just before the hearing. The Committee found him guilty of professional misconduct of the gravest kind in breach of Canons VII(b)(ii), I(b) and VIII(b), describing his conduct as disgraceful and dishonourable, and ordered his name struck from the roll. No express finding of dishonesty was made; the Committee noted misconduct could be found even absent fraudulent intent.

Duties found breached:

• Uphold public trust in the profession
• No improper use of client money

Aggravating factors:

• Attorney of almost 40 years experience who knew clients' funds are trust funds
• Improperly disbursed/converted client funds without authority from January 1996
• Gave the complainant repeated excuses and failed to pay over funds
• Failed to respond to multiple letters from complainant's new attorneys
• Only repaid the money in July 1997 just before appearing before the Council

Mitigating factors:

• Eventually repaid the principal sum plus 20% interest to the complainant's attorneys
• Tribunal noted possible absence of fraudulent intent