Dear Editor,
Guyana is a difficult country economically, and when persons in the legal profession become indistinguishable from the common confidence trickster it invokes the worse considerations about how such matters should be dealt with. I have two lawyers that I have sought counsel from over the years and I have no regrets. Recently, one of my children embraced an incident involving one of her relatives; this incident occurred in Berbice. She was advised to seek the legal representation of a lawyer familiar to her other half. I was briefed much later, after she found that there seemed to be an unusual approach by this lawyer to addressing the issue of representing her relative. He never appeared once for this case and told her he had asked a lawyer in Berbice to act in his absence. The lawyer when contacted said that it was not his case and that he had received no money to proceed.
At this point I was consulted. I called the lawyer (name provided) whose number coincidently I was given by a friend from overseas who needed a lawyer concerning some local matters. The lawyer told me that he wanted the person held in prison to be given a long court date, then he would get bail in Georgetown for her under some ‘special circumstances’ grounds. I thought this weird and insensitive and I advised my child to ask back for her deposit which was more than half of the agreed sum, because he had told her upon taking the case that he had some relatives in the country who wanted to see the Berbice bridge so he would tie the case and that trip together. Subsequently he informed her that his relatives had changed their minds, so he wasn’t going to Berbice after all. I visited his office in Georgetown with a plan after he wouldn’t take my calls, and I was able to convince his secretary that he needed to speak to me. She called him, and he told her that he was at the dentist and I would have to be brief, I took the receiver from her and he had hung up. He left the country for vacation on the following day, July 28.
The conduct of this lawyer is plain dishonest. You take money from the public, and attempt to intimidate the public by telling them you have a no refund policy. This is illogical and most likely illegal, but is done under the illusion that when you act unscrupulously some social ties would protect you in the Police Force or the legal profession. However, there are some of us who do not believe that familiarity will persuade professionals to put themselves on the line for the criminal behaviour of a lawyer. I will also explore the authorities who pay an interest to the conduct of lawyers.
Yours faithfully,
Barrington Braithwaite
