There are many ways lawyers can pay their clients seamlessly, but in the end president of the Barbados Bar Association, Rosalind Smith-Millar believes honesty and integrity are the two most important factors in the attorney/client relationship.
Her comments have come following the conviction of yet another attorney-at-law for stealing a client’s money.
Ernest Winston Jackman was today found guilty of theft and money laundering charges. A jury unanimously found Jackman guilty of stealing $678 414.75 from HEJ Limited between June 23, 2006 and March 5, 2007 and of laundering the money between June 23, 2006 and October 18, 2011.
He is the fourth lawyer in the last four years to be found guilty of stealing from a client.
Two weeks ago attorney-at-law, Norman Lynch was also found guilty of similar charges and is currently awaiting sentencing.
Back in 2019, Vonda Pile was sentenced to three years in prison for stealing $191 416.39 from a former client and Cheraine Parris was given a four-year prison sentence in 2020, for stealing $302 000 from her client.
Speaking to Barbados TODAY shortly after the verdict was delivered, the Bar president said there was no reason a lawyer should find themselves in such a predicament.
Smith-Millar said while there was more than one way transactions between a lawyer and client could be conducted, honesty and trust remained paramount.
“There is no rule that says that a transaction has to be handled in a particular way when it comes to the payment of the monies for the sale of property…How it is paid depends on a lot of different things; where it is coming from, if there is an old loan on the property that has to be paid off, a whole list of different things, but if one is organized the difficulties can be mitigated, but there is no hard and fast rule that is likely to be appropriate for every transaction.
“If everyone did what they should do and behave with honesty and integrity then there would be no problems,” Smith-Millar contended.
The Bar president said technology allowed for payments to be made seamlessly and should be utilized.
“We do things in a very traditional way but modern technology allows now for wire transfers without all the million steps that you used to have to go through. There are different ways of dealing with things and yes it might be time that we look again at how we do things to try to avoid any challenges,” Smith-Millar said.
“But I go back to the point that if everybody acted honestly and with integrity we wouldn’t have a problem. The real problem is that you are dealing with human beings who are not always perfect. No excuse, no excuse whatsoever.”
Meanwhile, attorney-at-law Shadia Simpson was also of the view that whatever method is used to disseminate funds, trust remained an important factor.
She told Barbados TODAY if lawyers and their clients worked closely together solutions could be found.
Simpson also maintained that lawyers had to be held accountable for their actions.
“Where there is a will there is a way. There is a way around it but I think it is unfortunate because to me at the end of the day you will find yourselves in other positions where you still have to trust the attorney, so it still comes back down to trust,” Simpson said.
“A relationship between an attorney and a client is one of trust. It just comes down to ethics, it just comes down to an attorney doing the things that they are required to do. It may not be a land transaction, it may be the sale of some other asset and at the end of the day the client is still put in a position where they have to trust the attorney with their money, so the onus is really on the attorneys and holding them accountable at the end of the day.” randybennett@barbadostoday.bb
