A lawyer lost a court bid to recoup almost $44,000 in fees he says he is owed by a client who disputed his handling of her child custody case.Ruling that Paul Harshaw is not entitled to the money, Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons criticised him for failing to adequately advise the woman on the law.She also criticised him for failing to obtain court protection for the woman and her son amid allegations of abuse at the hands of the child’s father.The woman who was sued by Mr Harshaw is a Jamaican, who cannot be named in order to protect the anonymity of her son.According to the judge’s ruling, she retained the lawyer to represent her in proceedings launched by her child’s father. The father won a Supreme Court order against her after she took the child to Jamaica.The court ordered the woman to return the boy to Bermuda within a week, or face custody until he was returned. The court also ordered her to surrender her travel documents, awarded the father sole custody of the child and banned her from leaving Bermuda or sending the child out of Bermuda again until a further court hearing.The woman hired Mr Harshaw to represent her in that follow-up hearing, as she disputed the legality of the court order. She wanted him to challenge the court’s authority under the Minor’s Act to make the order that it did. Mr Harshaw’s submissions at the follow-up hearing were rejected by the court.Mr Harshaw believes he represented the woman properly using “the skill and competence of the standard expected of an attorney licensed to practice law in the courts of Bermuda,” according to the ruling from Mrs Justice Simmons. He said for that reason, she should pay $37,000 plus interest, coming to a total of $43,829.46, which he says she owes.However, the woman disputed Mr Harshaw’s claim, arguing that he did not represent her properly and she should not have to pay. Ruling in favour of the woman, Mrs Justice Simmons criticised Mr Harshaw, saying: “The plaintiff did not adequately advise the defendant on the law, in particular on the applicability of the Children Act.”She said he made mistakes in his knowledge of access hearings and did not obtain a reasonable maintenance order. She added that he also “failed to adequately advise the defendant or carry out her instructions, and generally protracted the matter to the detriment of the defendant”.The woman complained that Mr Harshaw failed to address her complaints about the father’s allegedly abusive and threatening behaviour towards her.The judge criticised Mr Harshaw for failing to pursue a Domestic Violence Order [DVO], as he mistakenly thought it would not be possible to obtain one since the mother and father of the child did not live together. According to Mrs Justice Simmons, living together is not required when parties in a DVO case have a child together.“Again, this is a matter of law that one would expect counsel to know,” she said of Mr Harshaw, going on to say he “fell short of adequately advancing the defendant’s case, which required diligence in doing all that he could to efficiently and effectively seek protection for the defendant and the minor.”She criticised Mr Harshaw for not making an emergency application to vary an access order in the light of the allegations about the child’s father, so that the father did not have to be in direct contact with the mother.Instead, she said, the lawyer advised the woman to let the matter “go to sleep” for a while. The judge said if Mr Harshaw had made such an application, it would “in all probability” have been successful.The client informed Mr Harshaw she would no longer require his services in May 2010. She told Mrs Justice Simmons she did not receive any bills from him for matters that arose after September 2009 and he has overcharged her, since he did not accomplish anything for her.Mr Harshaw said he invoiced the woman electronically himself and she paid him $15,000 up until April 2009 but then his accounts department took over the billing process. He was unable to prove invoices were sent to her in respect of the money he said he is still owed.The judge said in her view, the woman “did not receive value for the money she has been charged,” by Mr Harshaw, and dismissed his claim for the $43,829.46.“I am of the view that the amount already paid by the defendant is sufficient to compensate the plaintiff,” said Mrs Justice Simmons, ordering Mr Harshaw to pay the woman’s costs.Invited to comment on the case, Mr Harshaw said: “The content of the judge’s ruling is not accepted and the judgment is being appealed. In those circumstances, it would be inappropriate for me to make any other comment at this time.”