The Gazette 1912-13

[APRIL, 1913

The Gazette ol the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.

114

professional misconduct. The question then was, what order the Court ought to make, it being a case brought within the disciplinary jurisdiction of the Court. The facts were rather special. The respondent was connected for some time in business with the associa tion ; he was party to its formation. It was an association which contemplated a mode of remuneration of the respondent which was of a champertous character, namely, a share by way of percentage of the property recovered. At the same time it had not been decided by the Court, when the particular association was formed, that it was improper for a Solicitor to be connected in that way with a debt-collecting business. The res pondent was not guilty of any fraud or mis appropriation ; there was nothing of that kind ; he was simply a party to that un professional arrangement. As soon as the case of In re a Solicitor (supra) was decided he at once altered his position in reference to the association, and that was the strongest circumstance in his favour which induced the Court'to take a lenient view of his position. The respondent's conduct was clearly not so bad as was that of the Solicitor in In re a Solicitor- (supra), in which case the Solicitor was suspended for twelve months ; so it was obvious that if the present respondent were to be suspended he ought not to be suspended for so long a period as twelve months. It was not very useful to suspend a man if they did not see their way to suspend him for a substantial period. In the circumstances the Court came to the conclusion that it would be sufficient to order the respondent to pay the costs of the proceedings. Mr. Justice Bray and Mr. Justice Coleridge concurred. (Reported 29 The Times Law Reports, 354.)

his connection with the Association was un professional, at once severed his connection with it, it was sufficient to order him to pay the costs of the proceedings. The Committee of the Law Society found that the respondent Solicitor was cognisant of and party to the formation in November, 1908, of the Manchester Property Association, in which he became, in February, 1910. and remained until November, 1911, a partner; that from its formation he financed the association, and during his partnership partly controlled its affairs ; and that he acted thus with a view to the employment by him of the association as an adjunct to his business as a Solicitor: that by the agency of the association the respondent systematically solicited debt-collecting and business transfer work, and that in certain cases he did so without disclosing his connection with the association and with a view to procuring for himself the litigious business in connection with such work ; that the terms upon which the respondent, by the agency of the association, solicited debt-collecting and business transfer work, and upon which he conducted the several proceedings and the several actions mentioned in the committee's report were champertous and improper. Upon these findings, and upon the facts stated by them, the Committee reported that the respondent had been guilty of professional misconduct within the meaning of the Solicitors Act, 1888. Mr. Justice Channell, in delivering judg ment, said that the statutory committee had found that the respondent had been guilty of professional misconduct within the meaning of the Solicitors Act. It had been said in several cases that upon such matters the Court would almost invariably act upon the opinion of the gentlemen who formed the Committee of the Law Society. These gentlemen were the most competent to decide upon professional matters of this kind, and the analogy drawn in In re a Solicitor (28 The Times L. R. 50) from the medical pro fession was, he thought, a good analogy. This Court, although it would in a proper case differ from the Law Society, did not lightly do so in cases of that nature. In this case the Court agreed with the judgment, if he might so call it, of the Committee to the effect that the respondent had been guilty of

GALWAY PETTY SESSIONS.

INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETY o? IRELAND, Complainants ;

THE

TIMOTHY NAUGHTON, of 35 Shop Street, Galway. Publican and Farmer, Defendant. March 10, 1913.— Wrongfully acting as a Solicitor — Using false description. THIS was a summons at the suit of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland, under