SDT: Exceptional circumstances
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has decided against striking off a junior solicitor who deleted part of a colleague’s handover note to cover up his failure to do what it said.
The SDT considered there were exceptional circumstances that justified not imposing the usual sanction of strike-off that applies in cases of dishonesty and instead suspended Jack Alexander Williams for two years.
He qualified in September 2020 and joined Buckinghamshire firm Blaser Mills in November 2022, working in the wills and probate team in the Amersham office.
In December 2022, a colleague went on maternity leave and, in her handover note on a matter Mr Williams was taking over, said it would be necessary to keep in contact with the person dealing with the sale of the property constituting part of the estate so that steps to mitigate CGT for the estate could be considered.
There were significant delays, not of Mr Williams’s making, in the sale of the property. In September 2023, after being asked what had happened in relation to CGT, he deleted the prompt from the electronic copy of the note.
Mr Williams also sent a misleading email sent to his supervisor that wrongly suggested that the colleague had not handed over the matter to him properly.
Another colleague realised what he had done after checking the paper file.
The SDT said his actions had “largely been spontaneous” and “no direct harm was caused to anyone by it”.
It found that, while he was conscientious, he had “panicked at the realisation of having made a mistake”.
Mr Williams had “inherited a heavy caseload” when joining Blaser Mills and his inexperience as a qualified solicitor was “an important part of the context”.
The tribunal also took account of Blaser Mills’ continued support for the solicitor; it “considered that he could learn from the incident and could continue in practice under appropriate supervision”.
Mr Williams was not dismissed for his misconduct and instead issued with a final written warning in November 2023. The firm then reported him to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
The managing partner, who investigated what happened, described it as a “moment of madness” and concluded that the solicitor “had no propensity to do something like this again”.
The tribunal said Mr Williams had “admitted his misconduct fully and immediately upon confrontation”, co-operated fully with both the law firm and SRA’s investigations.
He had demonstrated “genuine remorse, insight into his failings, and had undertaken ethics training on his own initiative”.
No harm was caused to the client – while there was a CGT liability borne by the firm, this was not as a result of the amendment to the handover note – while the colleague who had written the note said there were “now no hard feelings”.
Although the misconduct was “serious and deliberate” and “while the decision was a finely balanced one”, the case did “fall within the very narrow residual category recognised in the authorities” where a sanction for dishonesty less than a striking-off was justified.
The tribunal “recognised and emphasises that the exceptional circumstances were narrowly confined to the facts of the case and should not be read as creating a wider precedent for leniency”.
It ordered that, following the end of the suspension in November 2027, Mr Williams’ practising certificate be subject to conditions for two more years preventing him from working other than as an employee and not as a compliance officer.
The SDT cut the costs claimed by the SRA from £31,000 to £16,400.
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