Attorney Lisamae Gordon’s fight for legal career heads to Privy Council |
The Privy Council, Jamaica’s highest court, has agreed to hear the appeal of an attorney-at-law who was suspended from practice and ordered to pay US$35,000 following a disputed transaction involving a property in Trelawny.
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council granted Lisamae Gordon permission to appeal on June 3.
The central issue before the top court is whether the General Legal Council (GLC) and the Jamaican Court of Appeal erred in finding that Gordon, who represented the vendor, owed a duty of care the property’s prospective purchasers and negligently breached it?
The GLC regulates the legal profession in Jamaica.
The case could have direct implications for how professional responsibility is interpreted in Jamaican conveyancing practice, which involves the transferring of ownership of property from one person to another.
According to the Privy Council’s summary of facts in the case, Gordon had agreed to act for Kathleen Robinson and her son, Howard Jobson, in connection with land at Orange Grove said to be owned by Robinson. The transactions started around 2014.
The purchasers, Baron Barnett and Charmaine Barnett, paid a deposit of US$35,000, which Gordon transferred to Jobson.
The transaction subsequently unraveled after the Barnetts discovered that Robinson was not entitled to sell the Orange Grove land, as it was subject to an injunction, according to a summary on the Privy Council’s website.
The Barnetts filed a complaint with the Disciplinary Committee of the General Legal Council alleging that Gordon had agreed to act for them as well as for the vendor, and that her failure to warn them that Jobson had no right to sell the land amounted to negligence.
Gordon’s defence was that she was not the Barnetts’ attorney and acted solely for the vendor, according to the Privy Council’s summary.
The disciplinary committee rejected that defence and in 2022 upheld the complaint and found Gordon guilty of professional misconduct.
The committee suspended Gordon from practice for six months, and ordered her to pay a fine equivalent to the full deposit, US$35,000.
Gordon appealed, and in May 2025, the Jamaican Court of Appeal of Jamaica affirmed both the finding and the penalty imposed by the GLC.
Gordon then took her matter to the Privy Council.
A panel comprising Lord Briggs, Lord Stephens, and Lady Rose found sufficient merit in Gordon’s grounds to grant permission to appeal.
The hearing date has not yet been published.
“Besides thanking my God and Heavenly Father through his son Jesus Christ, my attorneys – Hugh Wildman, Meg Henlin, Stephanie Williams, Raun Barrett, Peter Knox, I have nothing much to say,” Gordon told The Gleaner. “I am grateful for the support given to me by my colleagues through the years of distress fighting for my reputation, my livelihood and my existence. It is not over yet – but as my mother has always told me “don’t worry child God will take you through it”.”
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