A JERSEY advocate charging an hourly rate of more than £500 was summoned to a disciplinary hearing after urging colleagues to “bury this guy” in correspondence about legal fees… and copying the “guy” he was referring to into his email.
Advocate James Sheedy’s chosen phrase, described as “outrageous” by the costs lawyer acting for the complainant, led to a formal complaint to the Law Society of Jersey.
The complaint centres on an email sent in January last year addressed to two colleagues at the law firm Baker and Partners, including the firm’s founder and senior partner, Stephen Baker.
In the email, Advocate Sheedy stated: “My response is to bury this guy – he’s changed his mind and now doesn’t want to pay.”
Legal fees charged by Baker and Partners have also been the subject of an adjudication process, which found that more than 20% of a total bill of around £45,000 should be deducted.
The matter was taken up by costs lawyer Jim Diamond, acting on behalf of Advocate Sheedy’s former client Cliff Barber – who was the person copied into Advocate Sheedy’s email.
Mr Diamond said Mr Barber was in his 70s, and had suffered health problems, and criticised the Law Society for suggesting that he must deal with the complaint without a solicitor’s assistance.
Mr Diamond added: “We wanted to highlight this outrageous conduct by Advocate Sheedy in writing the email.”
The complaint referred to the society’s code of practice, which stipulates that members “must behave with good manners and courtesy towards other members, their employees and third parties”.
Law Society chief executive Neville Benbow confirmed to the JEP that a disciplinary hearing had been convened to determine whether Advocate Sheedy had breached the code of conduct.
Asked about the outcome of the hearing, Mr Benbow said that the judgment would not be made public – this was standard policy, he added, in cases where no sanctions were imposed.
The original email arose out of correspondence relating to the winding-up of a company owned by John Trant, a business associate of Mr Barber’s.
The fee adjudication, which was carried out by Law Society appointee Advocate Mike Preston, found that Baker and Partners had failed to apprise the client of a rise in Mr Sheedy’s costs after he was promoted from senior associate to partner in 2022.
His hourly fee rose from £410 to £535 at this point, with Advocate Preston noting that the change should have been advised “as a matter of professional conduct”.
The adjudication of fees found that the charge for Mr Sheedy’s time should be reduced by around £4,500 as a result of the fee change, and also that almost £5,000 in additional costs should be taken off the total bill as a result of duplication.
Advocate Preston assessed that a total of £9,471 should be deducted from the initial bill of £44,786.
Mr Diamond said the fee assessment set a serious precedent.
He said: “Professional conduct rules state costs information must be in writing – I suggest buyers of legal services in Jersey insist a budget be produced and updated at least twice a year, or more frequently with big cases.”
After joining Baker and Partners in 2014, Advocate Sheedy was made a partner in 2022. He left the company last November and took up a new job with Collas Crill at the start of January.
Advocate Sheedy told the JEP he had no comment to make on the matter.
Asked about the matter prior to the disciplinary hearing taking place, Advocate Baker said: “A comparatively young lawyer, on a single occasion, expressed himself intemperately in a moment of frustration in what was intended to be exclusively internal correspondence.
“He inadvertently copied it to a contact of the client and immediately apologised – I offered him words of advice, which he unreservedly accepted.”
