A solicitor is facing three allegations of professional misconduct linked to his handling of a €100,000 deposit placed into his practice’s client account.
Michael A O’Brien, solicitor and principal of a firm of the same name based in Carrick on Suir, Co Tipperary, denies any wrongdoing.
The Legal Services Regulatory Authority’s case against Mr O’Brien, being heard by the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, follows a complaint by Dolores Barrett Burke who sought to invest €100,000 in a scheme to purchase the Heritage Hotel and Spa in 2018.
She told the tribunal she was “shocked” to read in a newspaper that the Co Laois hotel had instead been purchased by FBD Hotels & Resorts, yet Mr O’Brien made no attempt to return her money to her.
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Ms Barrett Burke, who is retired and lives in Castlebar, Co Mayo, said she transferred the money after receiving a letter from Mr O’Brien in June 2018 that she believed provided the required assurances.
The investment opportunity had been suggested to her by her brother-in-law Cyril Burke. The proposed purchase was being led by Mary Parton, a woman she never met, she said.
However, she said she later learned FBD had purchased the hotel. She believed she would receive her money back “in the same way I had sent it”, but did not immediately worry about why it was not returned.
More than a year later, she consulted her solicitor, Thomas J Walsh, who sent the first of a number of letters to Mr O’Brien seeking the return of the funds.
After no reply to initial correspondence, the tribunal heard, Mr O’Brien responded to explain that the terms of his undertaking had been adhered to and the money had been dispensed in accordance with the instructions of his client, Ms Parton.
Barrister Mark Finan, for Mr O’Brien, put it to Ms Barrett Burke that the letter his client sent to her clearly stated his understanding was that she would be paying the money into the client account “for and on behalf of Mary Parton”.
It was also put to her that, while she had indicated when making a complaint about Mr O’Brien to the Legal Services Regulatory Authority that she had engaged Mr O’Brien, she had never actually done so and was not, in fact, his client.
“I figured because I sent him the money and it was a client account, I was now a client,” she said.
The tribunal is scheduled to resume on October 29th.
In the interim, it is to be clarified whether the tribunal’s chair, Tom Coughlan, is acquainted with Ms Barrett Burke’s brother-in-law Cyril Burke.
He told the hearing he became aware of a possible connection after seeing the list of witnesses and hearing the evidence but was not sure if it is the same Cyril Burke who he knows but not well.
