Scots lawyer fined £1,000 over failure to cooperate with complaint investigation

Paul Thompson was fined £1,000 after the Scottish Solicitors’ Discipline Tribunal (SSDT) found that his conduct was “serious and reprehensible”.

The tribunal heard that the respondent, the sole partner in the firm PT Legal between February 2011 and October 2013, was suspended from practice on 28 October 2013 over his failure to correspond and cooperate with Law Society of Scotland’s financial compliance department.

After his suspension, he continued to represent a client in an Employment Tribunal case against Inverclyde Council.

That he was doing so only came to light after his client raised a separate complaint against the solicitor.

The Council of the Law Society of Scotland considered that his conduct may amount to professional misconduct or unsatisfactory professional conduct and raised the present complaint ex proprio motu.

However, the respondent failed to respond to letters from the regulator asking him to set out his position in respect of the complaint and to provide his business files in relation to the matter from which the complaint arose.

He also failed to respond to subsequent statutory notices which were issued, requiring him to produce specified documents and an explanation of the matters relating to the complaint.

The council said he had failed to reply in such a way which would enable the regulator to complete its investigation of the matter, which led to a further complaint.

Both complaints were considered by a Law Society sub-committee, which considered that his conduct in continuing to represent a client met the test for unsatisfactory professional conduct, and that his failure to respond to correspondence amounted to professional misconduct.

The tribunal, having considered the facts and complainers’ submissions, found the respondent guilty of professional misconduct over his failure to respond timeously, accurately or fully to correspondence or statutory notices.

In a written decision, SSDT vice chairman Colin Bell said: “The tribunal was satisfied that the respondent’s behaviour was serious and reprehensible and met the test for professional misconduct. The behaviour amounted to a course of conduct of failure to cooperate with the respondent’s regulatory body.

“The tribunal has on many occasions emphasised the importance of the duty of a solicitor to cooperate with the law Society exercising its role as the regulatory body if the profession. The society exercises this function to protect the public. It cannot do so effectively without the cooperation of the members of the profession.”

Accordingly, the tribunal unanimously found the respondent guilty of professional misconduct, albeit at the “lower end of the scale”.

However, when considering sanction, the tribunal also had regard to its previous findings against the respondent for analogous matters, adding that further aggravating factors were his lack of remorse and insight and his failure to engage with the tribunal process.