Attorney practices despite removal
A resident, and until recently, practising attorney, has reportedly continued to charge clients for attorney services rendered
A resident, and until recently, practising attorney, has reportedly continued to charge clients for attorney services rendered, in spite of him having been struck from the roll of attorneys by the Gauteng North High Court on June 12.
Estelle Veldsman from the Law Society of the Northern Provinces confirmed that Jan Scholtemeyer’s name had been removed from the roll of attorneys.
Also speaking on behalf of the Law Society, Mamikie Lekgetho said this meant that Scholtemeyer was allowed to open a legal advice centre or consultancy, which would not fall under the Law Society’s jurisdiction.
But he was not allowed to call himself a practising attorney or practise as an attorney.
Doing so would be consi-dered a criminal offence.
She said there was a thin line between running a consultancy or giving legal advice and practising as an attorney.
She said it could therefore be against the law to still have a sign on display describing himself as an attorney.
However, as late as yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon, the sign at his business premises still proclaimed Scholtemeyer to be an attorney. Asked why the sign was still on display, Scholtemeyer told Review he had forgotten to remove it.
He said he did not know if it was illegal for him to display the board.
A client of his who is a former resident, Rita Strydom said she made an appointment with Scholtemeyer for last Friday as she was planning to be in the city on a personal matter over the weekend.
As the jurisdiction of the legal matter she required an attorney’s under the Polokwane jurisdiction, she decided it was best to use a local attorney’s services, she explained.
“He (Scholtemeyer) was the logical choice as he had handled other legal matters for me when I still lived in Polokwane and I already had a client file with him,” she said.
She said Scholtemeyer saw her in the capacity of a practising attorney on Friday and requested a deposit of R3 000 to handle the new matter on her behalf.
Strydom said when she consulted with him on Friday, she was not yet aware that he had been struck from the roll and he did not inform her of this fact either.
“I did not have the money with me and by chance, found out over the weekend that he had been struck from the roll,” she said.
She added that Scholtemeyer was handling another case for a family member, whom he had also not informed about being struck from the roll.
Yesterday (Wednesday) Scholtemeyer told Review he was not allowed to communicate the fact that he had been struck from the roll to his clients, as it was the role of the Law Society to do so on his behalf.
Lekgetho said the onus was on Scholtemeyer to tell his client that he was not an attorney any longer.
She said the Law Society could not have communicated this to his clients unless he had abdicated his client files to them, in which case the Law Society would have written to his former clients to inform them as well as to request them to collect their files. Scholtemeyer denied he was still purporting to be an attorney.
He said Strydom was an old client of his and he had only had a “general” discussion with her during which he gave her legal advice on what steps to take regarding her matter as well as how much the case would possibly cost.
“There is nothing barring me from telling her what steps to take,” he said.
But Strydom said she had received legal correspon-dence from Scholtemeyer as well as accounts.
“In fact, on August 8, I paid R10 000 for services rendered during my divorce proceedings into his trust account, which is being administered by a curator.”
She said on being told she had paid the money into this account, Scholtemeyer allegedly asked her to reverse the payment and pay the money into a different bank account.
“He phoned every day to find out how far I was with the reversal, but the bank told me they could not do it, as the account was ‘frozen’,” Strydom said.
Scholtemeyer was removed from the roll of attorneys after he was accused of being “guilty of unprofessional, dishonourable and unworthy conduct”, by contravening rules of the law society regarding the auditing of his finances as required by the Attorney’s Act and the Society’s Rules, according to court documentation.