SDT: Solicitor admitted misconduct
A solicitor who “repeatedly” transferred money from client to office account to prop up his firm has been struck off by the Solicitor Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).
Dominic Leon Macknight admitted acting dishonestly in making the improper withdrawals, which left a shortage of at least £16,300 on client account, and in deliberately misleading the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) about what happened.
Mr Macknight, admitted in 2016, became director, sole manager and sole shareholder of Lawson Taylor, based in Blackburn and specialising in personal injury, in the autumn of 2021.
The SRA received two reports in the summer of 2022 relating to Mr Macknight and his firm’s “responsiveness to their client issues”.
The regulator launched an investigation in October 2022; he responded by saying he intended to close the firm because of financial difficulties, a downturn in personal injury work and his father’s ill health.
The law firm had not completed compliant client account reconciliations since the end of August 2021 and, as a result, the SRA “was unable to establish whether the firm held sufficient funds in the client bank account to meet its liabilities to clients”. The SRA shut it down in December 2022.
Mr Macknight admitted all the allegations against him. He admitted acting dishonestly in making improper withdrawals from client to office account and failing to “promptly replace” the £16,300 shortage.
In its evidence, the SRA said the solicitor admitted that he made two withdrawals worth £4,600 “to ensure the debit balance on the firm’s office bank account did not exceed £30,000 because the firm did not have an authorised overdraft facility”.
The SRA said he also told them: “I knew at the time when I transferred the money it did not belong to the firm. I’ve been winging and praying it – I can see that I am a risk to the profession.”
Mr Macknight admitted providing the SRA with “inaccurate and/or misleading explanations” between October 2022 and July 2023.
The SRA said that during an interview on 20 October 2022, he gave “a number of answers which he subsequently admitted were untrue and therefore misleading”.
He said the law firm had no judgment debts against it, when it had five; he said it had a bookkeeper, when the bookkeeper had resigned; and he told the SRA the firm’s books were up-to-date “when this was not true because the books had not been done since he took over the firm”.
Mr Macknight also admitted breaching the accounts rules by failing to ensure that reconciliations were carried out.
The SDT found that his misconduct had been motivated by “his and the firm’s financial difficulties”. It had been “planned and deliberate and had been repeated over a considerable period of time”.
By admitting the misconduct, the solicitor “had shown some level of genuine insight”, but the full admission had been made at a “very late stage of the proceedings”, at the hearing. There were “no mitigating factors to be taken into account” in determining the sanction.
While he had experienced “difficult personal circumstances”, they did not relate to his dishonest conduct and so “did not amount to exceptional circumstances” that would mitigate against the usual sanction of a strike-off.
On costs, the tribunal concluded that Mr Macknight had “insufficient financial means and inability to pay” the SRA’s costs, which came to over £9,300. There was no order for costs.
