DISCIPLINARY REPORT:COMPLAINTS CONCERNING overcharging clients, delay in the issuing of documents, the forging of signatures and failure to furnish accounts to the Law Society were among those upheld by the Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal last year.
Details of the complaints are contained in the 2007 annual report of the tribunal.
The tribunal is a statutory body set up by the Solicitors Acts, as amended. Its 30 members - 20 solicitors and 10 lay people - are appointed by the President of the High Court. The solicitor members are nominated by the Law Society, and the lay members by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
Four new members were appointed by Dermot Ahern last week, to replace retiring lay members. The new members are Una Claffey, who was adviser to former taoiseach Bertie Ahern; Fingal Fianna Fáil councillor Brenda Clifford; banker Mary King and Dundalk Fianna Fáil councillor Séamus Byrne.
Members of the tribunal are paid €1,000 per hearing. They are expected to attend 10-12 hearings a year.
While there was a decrease in the number of new complaints brought to the tribunal in 2007, there was an increase in the number of sittings, up from 59 in 2006 to 84, according to the report.
However, last year was rather a "tame" year compared to the current one, according to the tribunal's chairman, Francis Daly. Cases involving solicitors who have prompted major scandals, like Michael Lynn, Thomas Byrne, Liam Carroll and Henry Colley, all took place in 2008.
The tribunal saw an increase in complaints concerning delay in the administration of estates, or in properly distributing their entitlements to beneficiaries.
In one case a solicitor was censured and ordered to pay €10,000 to the Solicitors' Compensation Fund for failing to respond to numerous letters from another solicitor acting for a beneficiary, and for obstructing him in administering the estate.
A number of complaints related to delay in conveyancing procedures. They included one where the solicitor had misled the Law Society and he was ordered to pay €10,000 to the compensation fund, and a further €10,000 to the complainant, without prejudice as to the complainant's further claims against him.
In another case, there was a delay in completing clients' deeds, and "updating" of the dates on the deeds so as to reduce the amount of stamp duty. This solicitor also "caused or allowed some signatures on the 'updated' deeds to be forged by a person or persons in his office".
This solicitor was referred to the High Court with the recommendation that he not be allowed continue to practise as a sole practitioner or partner, but only under supervision.
A number of cases concerning costs came before the tribunal. Allegations included failing to produce a bill of costs in advance, agreeing "party and party" (where the winning side pays the loser's costs) costs without reference to the client, and the procurement of further fees to which the solicitor was not entitled, as he or she had already been paid.
"If those fees (if so recovered from another party) meet in full the costs that have been incurred, there is no basis for charging the client anything else," the tribunal said.
The solicitor who engaged in such practices was ordered to pay €7,000 to the compensation fund on each of two counts.