Asking on behalf of a friend. If a lawyer takes money from his clients without signing either of the above, doesn't do any of the legal work like writing affidavits, gathering evidence, all this was done by the clients themselves, provides no legal strategy or advice, then discharges himself on the day of their hearing, is there grounds to lodge a complaint to the Law Society?
He was paid to represent 2 people who are both victims of domestic violence (PPO case). Reason given for his discharge: he told the clients that the judge wants to go home early as the hearing was taking place on the eve of a public holiday so the judge would not want to sit through a full day hearing so they should just drop their protection orders. Both clients are victims of domestic abuse so they they did not accept this reasoning and insisted to proceed. He then threatened them that he will discharge himself if they don't listen to him (they had no idea he could even do that!).They didn't withdraw so he discharged himself and the clients had to continue in person so as not to waste the Court's time. The lawyer then refused to refund the money that he had taken from the clients as he claimed one of the clients was "rude" (but no reason given for discharging himself for acting for the other client..?) He also said the money went towards paying himself and his associate for "work done" which he later described pretty much as copying and sorting documents that were provided by the clients and reading their emails.
Would the clients be able to get their money back from this crook?