A solicitor has appealed a 12-month suspension imposed by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT), arguing that the sanction was excessive and wrongly applied. The appeal was heard by the High Court, with wider implications for how professional misconduct sanctions are assessed.
The case follows the recent High Court ruling in Hurst v Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), which overturned an SDT finding and raised questions about proportionality and reasoning in disciplinary decisions.
The solicitor, a partner at a Leicester-based firm, was suspended for one year and ordered to pay more than £30,000 in costs after the tribunal found he had failed to conduct litigation in accordance with his duties as an officer of the court. He has challenged both the finding and the sanction, maintaining that the regulator’s case was fundamentally flawed.
During the appeal, the solicitor argued that the conduct relied upon by the SDT related to his actions as a litigant rather than professional misconduct as a practising solicitor. He submitted that the suspension was unnecessary, disproportionate, and counter-productive, and that the matter should have been resolved with a reprimand given the technical nature of the breaches and his cooperation with the regulator.
He also criticised the tribunal’s written reasons, which were issued several months after the hearing, arguing that they failed to clearly link judicial criticism to a breach of professional integrity. Relying on the Hurst decision, he contended that the SDT had misdirected itself in law.
The SRA opposed the appeal, arguing that the solicitor had admitted serious regulatory breaches, including pursuing unarguable cases and wasting court time. The regulator maintained that professional standards apply to solicitors appearing before the court, regardless of whether they are formally on the record, and that the findings and sanction were justified.
The High Court was told that the Hurst judgment is recent and may have broader significance for future disciplinary cases, particularly in relation to the level of reasoning required when findings of integrity are made.
The appeal hearing overran its listed time and has been adjourned, with judgment awaited.
