New attorneys have been warned not to fiddle with client funds as they enter the profession at a time when they have to adapt to changing costing practices and other challenges.
This was the charge yesterday from Chief Justice Patterson Cheltenham as he welcomed 32 lawyers to the Bar in his first such address after taking up duties from November 1.
At a special sitting of the Supreme Court, he told the cohort to remember that the trust they would gain from clients was sacred.
“The attorney-at-law is a trustee. He is never a beneficiary. These funds are to be held for the prescribed period to be delivered undiminished to the persons on whose behalf they are held. Deviation from this trust destroys the public confidence in the administration of justice, inflicts grave and intolerable pain on these affected, and diminishes us all in the eyes of right-thinking members of society. . .” (SNR)
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CAPTION: In the front row, Chief Justice Patterson Cheltenham (centre), Attorney General Dale Marshall (right) and president of the Bar Association of Barbados, Rosalind Smith-Millar QC, with the new attorneys who were admitted to the Bar yesterday. (Picture by Stacey N. Russell.)
