By Gabriel Princewill-
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has been asked to pay £27,000 of a solicitor’s costs after allegations were brought based on what the tribunal called ‘errors and mis understandings’.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has ordered the SRA to make the regulator pay Adrian Ring’s costs after unnecessarily forcing him into a full hearing for a sanction that could have been handed out internally.
Adrian Anthony Ring was found to have inadvertently made misleading statements to a court in a witness statement, for which he was fined £2,000 by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT), but a host of other allegations were dismissed.
Mr Ring, was concluded to have filed a witness statement explaining a mistake with an assertion that was untrue and misleading, and failing to attend court or comply with court directions, whilst with London firm Lawrence Stephens Solicitors,
Mr Ring had sought costs of £40,000 – the brief fee for his counsel, Greg Treverton-Jones QC – but the tribunal considered this too high. The SDT decided to reduce this to allow for those allegations that had been properly brought and, in one instance, proved. This led to a figure of £22,500 plus VAT.
The solicitor was also ordered to pay the SRA £5,000 in costs for the allegations that were properly brought – the SRA had asked for £15,000, from an original claim of £63,000.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal concluded Ring had been careless rather than reckless or dishonest when he made an inadvertent error in his statement. The tribunal agreed this misconduct was worthy of a £2,000 fine with £5,000 costs.
However, Gregory Treverton-Jones QC, for Ring, said the SRA had brought a ‘heavy handed and in some respects very unattractive’ case following a ‘flawed’ investigation. He said the regulator had cited no more than negligence, and argued that none of the failings that occurred amounted to professional misconduct.
However, the failure of the prosecution in proving the case led to the tribunal ordered the SRA pay £27,000 towards Ring’s costs, despite the fact misconduct as found to have occurred.
Mistakes
Allegations were found not to have been premised a series of mistakes, including investigators failing to obtain a relevant file and making what Ring’s counsel called ‘legal errors’ which made the case ‘unsustainable’.
The tribunal heard that investigating teams spent 234 hours on the matter, with a further 165 hours for preparing the prosecution. A total of 15 different fee earners were listed by the SRA as having been engaged.
Ring, was investigated after a complaint from a former client. Acting for a property owner in a repossession claim, he had to apply in 2016 for the court to set aside a default judgment made against his client after a series of procedural issues. A witness statement for this application was alleged to have misled the court.
The SRA submitted that Ring had failed to act in his client’s best interests or provide a proper standard of service, and was therefore in breach of two principles.
A Spokesperson for the SRA told The Eye Of Media.Com: ”we will be looking at the judgement again, and considering our options”