Legal Practice Council seeks to strike lawyer from roll over RAF claims scandal

The Legal Practice Council (LPC) has turned to court to have one of the former directors of a Kempton Park law firm removed from the roll nearly three years after eight former clients of the Road Accident Fund (RAF) lodged a complaint with the Legal Practice Council (LPC) over irregularities regarding the handling of their claims.

The application against former director Jakkie Supra, who was at the time tasked with overseeing the RAF claims at the firm Schurmann Van den Heever & Slabbert Inc, is due to be heard on an unopposed basis by the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria later this month.

The conduct of the law firm came to light after a whistleblower, William Crichton, then a candidate attorney at the firm, leaked information as he felt that the firm was not operating ethically.

Following this, in March 2020, the eight former RAF claimants turned to court to obtain an in camera order to authorise the Sheriff of the Court to arrive unannounced at the firm’s office, to take their files into safe custody.

A forensic audit was subsequently carried out and a report by auditor Ashwin Reddy found evidence of “fraudulent conduct” and “dishonest practices”. Inflated bills to the RAF and suspicious payments regarding medical bills were also flagged in the report.

Three years later the LPC convened a disciplinary hearing against several of the directors, who faced serious charges, including that they had brought the legal profession into disrepute.

Before the hearing was due to take place, the disciplinary hearing’s pro forma prosecutor announced that the directors would pay fines ranging between R60 000 and R120 000. This was done without hearing of any of the evidence and without the eight complainants being present.

Supra was not part of the plea deal and the disciplinary in March 2023 recommended that the LPC launch an application to either have him suspended or struck from the roll.

The Legal Services Ombud, retired Judge Siraj Desai, earlier released a report following an investigation by his office into how the LPC handled the disciplinary hearing.

He found that the LPC had failed to properly investigate the complaint by failing to obtain additional information before it entered into a plea agreement with the directors of the law firm.

He further found that the disciplinary committee and by implication the LPC, failed to adequately adjudicate the complaint. “In doing so the LPC and the disciplinary committee not only failed to act in the public interest, but also contributed to the injustice,” Judge Desai said.

Meanwhile, in its papers to have Supra struck from the roll, Ignatius Briel of the LPC, laid out in detail the allegations against Supra, which he said does not make him a fit to serve the legal profession.

These include that the firm, under Supra's guidance, employed 'runners' to 'sell' RAF files, in return for a fee. A former employee of Supra claimed that he had procured scores of claimants for Supra.

Further claims included that the firm retained enormous amounts of their clients’ payouts from the RAF and that the claimants were thus shortchanged.

It is alleged that the clients often had no idea how much money they were due to receive from the fund, as they were told by Supra not to enter the court when their cases are heard, but to await the outcome in a nearby coffee shop.

Supra meanwhile did not respond to the application as the Sheriff could not physically serve him with the court papers at any of his known addresses. The LPC obtained permission to serve the papers via an email address it had for him, yet there was no response.