Scots solicitor fined over failure to respond to client’s requests for case information

The Scottish Solicitors’ Discipline Tribunal (SSDT) also fined Raymond Mallon, 50, for causing his former client “significant inconvenience, anxiety and distress”.

The solicitor, who does not hold a practising certificate but remains on the solicitors’ roll, will have any practising certificate issued to him in future restricted for a period of three years, the SSDT added.

The respondent was a partner in RMS Law LLP in Falkirk from 2009 to early 2015 and then a consultant with Thompson and Brown Solicitors in Glasgow from February 2014 to November 2015, before moving to Berlow Rahman Solicitors, where he was employed in a similar capacity until October 2016.

Negligence case

The tribunal heard that a client, the secondary complainer, had consulted the respondent in respect of a potential claim after he had contracted Legionnaires disease following a holiday in Majorca.

Having returned home he was treated at Stirling Royal Infirmary before being released, but was subsequently re-admitted and spent three weeks in intensive care before being transferred to Glasgow Royal Infirmary for five weeks.

The respondent advised the secondary complainer that his treatment in Stirling had been negligent and that there was a case to sue the NHS for negligence.

The respondent wrote to the secondary complainer in February 2010 advising that he had received authorisation from the Scottish Legal Aid Board to progress his claim.

Thereafter the secondary complainer occasionally called the respondent’s office in Falkirk to check on progress and advised that his case was active and still on-going.

After later learning that the respondent was employed by Thomson and Brown he called their office but was told that the respondent was on long-term sick leave.

Legal aid certificate

The firm discussed the case with the respondent and then wrote to the secondary complainer in September 2015 to say they would apply for legal aid funding to investigate his case, but he wrote to the responded saying that he understood he already had funding and requested his legal aid certificate number.

Subsequently, the secondary complainer learned that the respondent had moved to Berlow Rahman and wrote to the respondent referring to his previous letter and the history of the case, again requesting he legal aid certificate number, but he received no response.

He complained to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, which referred the matter to the complainers, the Law Society of Scotland Council, which wrote the respondent requesting his professional files and any relevant information relating to the complaint.

But again he failed to respond and he was issued with notices in terms of section 15(1) of the Solicitors (Scotland) Act 1980 and section 48 the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007.

‘Serious and reprehensible conduct’

After he failed to reply the complaint was moved to the report stage and a report was duly prepared and sent to the Law Society’s professional conduct sub-committee, which considered that the respondent’s conduct in failing to respond to his client’s requests for information and his failure to co-operate with the Law Society’s investigation appeared to amount to a “serious and reprehensible departure from the standard of conduct to be expected of a competent and reputable solicitor”.

The matter was referred to the SSDT, which found the respondent guilty of professional misconduct over his failure to communicate with his client and by failing to respond to correspondence and notices from the Law Society.

In a written decision, tribunal chairman Nicholas Whyte said: “It was quite clear to the tribunal that the secondary complainer had suffered inconvenience, anxiety and distress as a direct result of the conduct of the respondent.

“In assessing what proportion had been caused by the established misconduct, it was clear to the tribunal that the secondary complainer had been convinced that he needed the legal aid reference number to progress any further.

“The failure to provide this information had gone on for a significant period of time and in fact the information had still not been provided to the secondary complainer. This had clearly caused significant inconvenience, worry, concern, anxiety and upset.

“The secondary complainer appeared to the tribunal to be a vulnerable individual. The respondent had taken on steps at all to rectify the matters.

“The tribunal concluded that the appropriate figure to reflect these issues was £750.”