A lawyer has been reprimanded by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for making "offensive and derogatory" comments about his opposite number, which included calling him (cover the children's eyes) a "plonker".
In 2012 the Solicitors Regulation Authority received a bundle of documents from a firm referred to in the Solicitors Disciplinary judgment as D & Co Solicitors. The firm said that the file contained evidence of abusive comments made by Richard Barca, a lawyer on the other side in a litigation matter and the owner of Wilson Barca LLP. The file's contents revealed that Barca started mildly:
But he became more forthright as the correspondence continued:
He concluded:
Scandalised D & Co accused Barca of being "insulting and vulgar" and making "blatantly racist remarks". It threatened to report him to the SRA if he did it again. So in his next letter Barca wrote:
He also emailed D & Co calling them "petty and silly", and laid down some ground rules for inspection of documents at his office:
At this point, D & Co blew its lid, losing some facility with the English language in the process:
In mitigation Barca's lawyer said he was turning 60 and an Australian. He also said that Barca had been suffering from a "particular physical illness" which "could have affected his temperament". In its judgment the SDT ruled that Barca's descent into a retaliatory style of engagement was "not remotely" justified, but that the harm inflicted was of a "low level" and that Barca's hiccup came in an otherwise unblemished 29 year career. He was reprimanded and ordered to pay costs of £2600, but no fine was imposed, so this time next year he could be a millionaire.
Tip Off ROF
In 2012 the Solicitors Regulation Authority received a bundle of documents from a firm referred to in the Solicitors Disciplinary judgment as D & Co Solicitors. The firm said that the file contained evidence of abusive comments made by Richard Barca, a lawyer on the other side in a litigation matter and the owner of Wilson Barca LLP. The file's contents revealed that Barca started mildly:
But he became more forthright as the correspondence continued:
He concluded:
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And they didn't think the tombstone was lovely jubbly, either |
Scandalised D & Co accused Barca of being "insulting and vulgar" and making "blatantly racist remarks". It threatened to report him to the SRA if he did it again. So in his next letter Barca wrote:
He also emailed D & Co calling them "petty and silly", and laid down some ground rules for inspection of documents at his office:
At this point, D & Co blew its lid, losing some facility with the English language in the process:
In mitigation Barca's lawyer said he was turning 60 and an Australian. He also said that Barca had been suffering from a "particular physical illness" which "could have affected his temperament". In its judgment the SDT ruled that Barca's descent into a retaliatory style of engagement was "not remotely" justified, but that the harm inflicted was of a "low level" and that Barca's hiccup came in an otherwise unblemished 29 year career. He was reprimanded and ordered to pay costs of £2600, but no fine was imposed, so this time next year he could be a millionaire.
Comments
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We note that according to the documentation that you provided us on the 10th November undercover of the letter of the 7th November, as of 4 November your client had $43,830.01 in her bank account. Presumably she has spent all of that in the period between the 4th November and your letter of the 13th November! Given the manner in which the funds under her control have been depleted, that seems an excessive rate of expenditure even for your client who has already spent over $180,000.00 in joint funds in the last 12 months.
ln the letter of 1 December, Mr Cooper said:
I have advised my client to instruct me not to respond to anymore of your correspondence. It just seems to me that every time you have got no work to do you return to [the wife’s] file because there is plenty of money there to pay your legal fees.
Later in the same letter, he wrote:
The children’s issues are never going to be resolved at the mediation. The likelihood is that your client and her family have done so much damage to [child] that my client will never have a meaningful relationship with his daughter. Your client will live to regret that in the future, when [child] grows up and becomes as dysfunctional as your client is.
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We note that according to the documentation that you provided us on the 10th November undercover of the letter of the 7th November, as of 4 November your client had $43,830.01 in her bank account. Presumably she has spent all of that in the period between the 4th November and your letter of the 13th November! Given the manner in which the funds under her control have been depleted, that seems an excessive rate of expenditure even for your client who has already spent over $180,000.00 in joint funds in the last 12 months.
ln the letter of 1 December, Mr Cooper said:
I have advised my client to instruct me not to respond to anymore of your correspondence. It just seems to me that every time you have got no work to do you return to [the wife’s] file because there is plenty of money there to pay your legal fees.
Later in the same letter, he wrote:
The children’s issues are never going to be resolved at the mediation. The likelihood is that your client and her family have done so much damage to [child] that my client will never have a meaningful relationship with his daughter. Your client will live to regret that in the future, when [child] grows up and becomes as dysfunctional as your client is.
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