Solicitor expresses regret for error in will as case is resolved

LEADING SOLICITOR Anne Colley has expressed her deep regret for the stress and hurt caused to clients in the handling of a €5 million will.

Her former clients, Dermot and Louise Barnewell, yesterday withdrew an allegation of professional misconduct against Ms Colley as part of an agreed resolution of their case at the Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal.

Ms Colley is chairwoman of the Legal Aid Board and a former Progressive Democrats TD.

In a statement read by her senior counsel, Michael McDowell, at the end of the hearing, Ms Colley acknowledged that a typing mistake in her office during the drafting of the will of May O’Neill, Mr Barnewell’s aunt, resulted in “a series of damaging consequences” which caused “great stress and hurt” to Ms O’Neill’s family.

Ms O’Neill, who died in 2002, willed her estate to Mr Barnewell and four other nieces and nephews. However, the will drawn up by Ms Colley’s firm wrongly included Joan Barnewell among the beneficiaries, instead of her brother John. Joan, the tribunal heard, is estranged from the other siblings.

Ms Colley’s statement also acknowledged that the original error was compounded by a failure to identify its source. At the time of Ms O’Neill’s death, Dermot Barnewell assumed he had made the error, but discovered six months later that it originated in his solicitor’s office.

The statement also noted that Dermot and Louise Barnewell accepted that Ms Colley did not act dishonestly or in bad faith and that the error had subsequently been “put right” in the High Court.

Earlier, Rossa Fanning, barrister for the couple, told the tribunal that relations in the Barnewell family had been irreparably damaged by the events which had occurred after Ms O’Neill revised her will in 2001.

In that year, when she was 92, she had sold her house and moved to a nursing home.

She resolved to divide her estate between five nephews and nieces and Dermot Barnewell wrote to Ms Colley in May 2001 with the amended version of her will. Ms O’Neill executed this will in July 2001 and died a year later.

Oh her death, Mr Barnewell searched through her papers and found a draft version of the will, in which his sister Joan’s name was wrongly included instead of his brother John.

Counsel said his client wrongly believed this was the draft of the will that he and his wife had prepared and that, therefore, the error was on their side.

Mr Barnewell, in evidence to the tribunal, said the error shattered his personal confidence and “broke” his relationship with his brother John, who told people that he had been deliberately put out of the will.

The error came to light when the family decided to have another look through the papers. In February 2003, his wife found a copy of the will on their computer which didn’t contain the error and “the penny dropped”.

Mr McDowell said his client was deeply upset for what had happened. However, given what Mr Barnewell had said to her, she had reasonable grounds for believing he had made the error.

After further questioning by Mr McDowell, the tribunal chairman Ernest Cantillon intervened to suggest that opposing counsel discuss the matter. Mr Barnewell’s statement that he didn’t believe Ms Colley had acted dishonestly provided “a chink of light” in the case, he suggested.