SDT: Solicitor should have sought court order
A family solicitor who was “unnecessarily partisan” in his representation of a father has been fined for trying to force the mother to reveal where she and her children lived.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) found that Clive Wood, a sole practitioner trading as CGW Law in Cheshire, tried to take unfair advantage of the mother when she faced him as a litigant in person during family proceedings in July 2022.
His conduct “demonstrated a failure to maintain the reasoned judgement and objectivity required of a solicitor, particularly in the context of sensitive family proceedings involving safeguarding considerations and confidential information”.
Despite being “an experienced solicitor of almost 44 years’ standing with extensive practice in family proceedings”, the SDT heard how Mr Wood sent a series of emails demanding that the mother disclose her phone number and address, despite her telling him that she had provided it to the court and that it should be for the court to decide.
In response to the father’s application for a child arrangements order, the mother had told the court that the father had been “physically violent and emotionally/psychologically abusive” during their relationship.
In his first email, Mr Wood said he would make an application to the court for disclosure if she refused. The SDT said that, despite this being “precisely the course which ought to have been followed”, he then failed to do so.
Initially, Mr Wood said the mother must send him her contact details so his client could contact their child. Then he said it was so that the father could make child contact arrangements. When this failed, Mr Wood told the mother he needed them to give to the court – but she had already told him the court had them.
The mother asked Mr Wood to consider the safety of her and her children.
Instead, he engaged a private investigator to find the address, which he then passed on to the father.
The tribunal rejected Mr Wood’s submission that he required the information in order to progress his client’s case; it said he knew, or should have known, that the mother did not want to give him the information, she had no legal duty to give it to him and he did not need it to progress the matter.
The SRA submitted that “the true reason” was that his client wanted to know where his ex-partner and children lived, and Mr Wood “had acted upon those wishes”.
Mr Woods had “circumvented” the protections contained within the Family Procedure Rules where issues of safeguarding, risk of domestic and domestic abuse arose.
The SDT decided that he had “demonstrated an unnecessarily partisan approach which had at times compromised his professional objectivity”.
Mr Wood told the tribunal he thought the father was “a nice chap with a nice home”, and that he saw no “red flags” in this case.
The SDT said he had also misjudged the mother by not considering her to be vulnerable because of the way she stood her ground with him.
“A person may be resolute in the assertion of their rights whilst simultaneously being in a vulnerable position. Indeed, the Family Procedure Rules exist precisely to afford protection to parties in such circumstances, regardless of how they conduct themselves in correspondence.
“Solicitors should not take it upon themselves to disregard the Family Procedure Rules in order to fulfil their client’s instructions.”
In mitigation, Mr Wood said that, with the benefit of hindsight, he recognised that his judgements of both his client and the mother had been “flawed”. He had reflected “significantly” on the case and expressed remorse for his conduct. He said he was “incredibly sorry” for the decisions he had made.
But the SDT, while recognising the solicitor’s hitherto unblemished record, found he “demonstrated limited remorse or insight in the course of his evidence and did not properly appreciate the position in which his conduct had placed” the mother.
Mr Wood was fined £17,500 and ordered to pay costs of £15,000.
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