Two decades later, disbarred attorney’s complaint against panel member fails

A former attorney has lost his bid to pursue a conflict-of-interest complaint against a member of the disciplinary panel that ruled over 20 years ago that he should be struck off the list of lawyers authorised to practise in Jamaica.

Disbarred attorney Therol Voche filed an application in the Court of Appeal requesting permission and more time to challenge a decision made last year by a disciplinary committee of the General Legal Council (GLC) not to pursue his complaint against Charles E. Piper, KC.

The GLC is the body that regulates the legal profession in Jamaica.

A panel of three Court of Appeal judges dismissed Voche’s application, describing it as “wholly unmeritorious”.

“It has not been demonstrated to us that any appeal in this matter, were we to permit one to be filed, would have any real chance of success,” the judges ruled in an 11-page judgment handed down on March 6.

Voche was disbarred on March 6, 2004 after he was found guilty of professional misconduct by a GLC disciplinary committee comprising Piper and fellow attorneys Pamela Benka-Coker and Gloria Langrin.

A transcript of the committee’s decision said Voche did not attend the hearings, which were convened to hear a complaint that was filed by famed Jamaican international cricketer Jeffrey Dujon.

The retired cricketer complained that Voche Capital Investment Limited (VCIL), a firm operated by the then attorney and his wife, who is also an attorney, failed for over eight years to return US$60,000 he invested in 1998.

On January 6, last year – nearly 21 years after he was disbarred – Voche filed a complaint with the GLC requesting that disciplinary proceedings be initiated against Piper.

Among the evidence before the committee were two letters, dated July 15, 1998 and September 15, 1998 and signed by Voche as president of VCIL, informing Dujon that the company had “rolled over his investment” for 61 days and 122 days, respectively.

But the committee concluded that when Voche signed both letters, he knew or “ought reasonably to have known that there was no real prospect of Mr Dujon recovering his investment”.

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Further, it concluded that the then attorney knew that VCIL had no authority, as of April 6, 1998 “or any time after that”, to “roll over” the investment, noting that its licence was suspended by the Financial Services Commission on March 4, 1998 “for failure to meet its liquidity requirements”.

The committee also found that a bailiff’s report, dated July 18, 1998, revealed that Voche knew that VCIL was in receivership and did not have the resources to pay Dujon the proceeds of his investment.

“We are also satisfied that in conducting his business affairs in relation to Mr Dujon, the respondent attorney was constrained by the [legal profession] rules to act in a manner which ensured that his professional duties and personal interests did not conflict or were not likely to conflict,” the panel wrote.

However, Voche complained to the GLC in late 2024 that Piper previously served as a lawyer for VCIL in a lawsuit and should not have been a “judge” in the complaint filed by Dujon.

“Mr Piper was obliged in law generally and under the Legal Profession Act in particular, to have advised the General Legal Council that he served as Council (sic) to me Therol Voche, and VCIL on matters that went to the very root of Mr Dujon’s claim,” he said in an affidavit.

The GLC, in a decision on May 31 last year, dismissed the complaint, concluding that it had not been made out.

The Court of Appeal affirmed the GLC’s decision, declaring that the allegations by the disbarred attorney “are cast in a very wide, vague and general terms and fall woefully short of clearly establishing, prima facie, a case of bias or conflict”, the panel of three judges wrote in their March 6 decision.

The Court of Appeal said it has not been demonstrated how Piper’s knowledge of information related to VCIL and Voche General Insurance “could possibly have been used or would have been taken into account or influenced his decision in the Dujon case”.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com