The reputation of the island’s legal profession is taking “a battering” as four lawyers currently sit in prison convicted for stealing their clients’ money.
Chief Justice Sir Patterson Cheltenham has warned four new attorneys that there was no “get-rich-quick scheme” in the profession but they will get out what they put into it.
He was speaking as he welcomed Rene Forde, son of Queen’s Counsel Roger Forde; Noah Haynes, son of Queen’s Counsel Leslie Haynes; Lewis St John, grandson of Sir Harold St John, and Andrea Husbands to the Bar yesterday.
Sir Patterson told the four they were entering a profession whose reputation had taken “a significant battering” in recent times” as “many lawyers are now occupying a delegated wing, I am told, over in St Philip”.
“When I first came to the Bench I indicated there would be a low tolerance for deviance. It spoils and soils and betrays all the trust imposed in you. Once one lawyer is highlighted in the public, it ripples right across all of us. We’re just seen as a collection of . . . and you know what we are seen as, no need for me to even call the term,” he said. “And it doesn’t stop there. They will say the judges are no better.” (HLE)
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