Sunday, March 15, 2015

DISHONEST LAW: Latest annual report of discipline tribunal where lawyers appear in front of themselves - reveals pitiful 31 case workload in the fairy tale land of solicitors’ self regulation

Lawyer vs lawyer tribunal protects bad apples, again. AMID the usual claims of client protection while attempting to polish the bad apples from the rotten - the latest annual report of the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal (SSDT) – the body charged with ‘prosecuting’ rogue solicitors who rip off their clients – details a dry, if ‘increasingly complex’ series of cases where rogue solicitors are hauled before their own colleagues to face the music.

This year’s thirty eight page report from the lawyer vs lawyer tribunal - covering the period 1 November 2013 to 31 October 2014 and only now published in the second week of March 2015 – details the usual, typically less than honest world of self regulation of the legal profession - where lawyers investigate themselves and then recommend their colleagues appear before themselves for a quick slap on the wrist.

The grand workload of the tribunal for the last year has – unsurprisingly – not seen a busy year, with 31 cases taken to the Tribunal during the 12 months, along with another 11 appeals against decisions of the Law Society of Scotland and other miscellaneous applications. The Tribunal managed to break away from the hustle & bustle, and occasional dodgy deals at parties by making findings of professional misconduct in 24 cases.

And – dishonesty – the habitual daily workout of some in Scotland’s legal profession – made famous by Alistair Cockburn’s performance on the BBC Scotland’s investigation Lawyers Behaving Badly – only merits a single mention in the entire report of a year’s worth of prosecuting dodgy solicitors.

2013-2014 SSDT Annual Report – revealing slaps on the wrist dished out to rogue solicitors. In this year’s SSDT Annual report – and like others before it – there is little to show the legal profession have any regard for client protection. Typically, solicitors receive pittance fines – which are usually made up from hikes in legal fees as soon as they get back to work. Along with fines, the traditional slap on the wrist was handed down on several occasions.

Chairman of the legal profession’s in-house tribunal commented: “Details of the Tribunal’s workload over the past 12 months are set out in this report. The Tribunal has continued to be very busy with cases becoming more complex and taking up more Tribunal time.”

The Tribunal is also dealing with a lot of Complaints which involve Secondary Complainers who have made claims for compensation.

There have again been a large number of cases involving the Council on Mortgage Lenders Handbook. It is hoped that members of the profession take time to read these decisions and be reminded of their obligations in terms of the Handbook.

The Tribunal is receiving an increasing number of Appeals under section 42ZA by Lay Complainers who often have difficulty in framing their Appeal in a structured and relevant way. The Tribunal accordingly has prepared guidance for Lay Complainers to try to assist them with this.”

Going on to comment on the state of the tribunal’s online website – which has suspiciously deleted many findings against rogue Scots lawyers, Chairman Cockburn said: “The Tribunal Findings continue to be put on the Tribunal website which can be accessed at www.ssdt.org.uk The Tribunal experienced technical difficulties with its website during the year owing to the age of the website. A temporary website is now in place and the Tribunal is working towards having a new website in operation in 2015.”

“Tribunal hearings continue to be held in public, normally at The Scotsman Hotel in Edinburgh. The diary part of the Tribunal website details the substantive business scheduled to be heard but not procedural business. In certain cases, business is not put into the diary if the hearing is to be held in private.”

DISHONESTY FACTOR:

An investigation by BBC’s Lawyers Behaving Badly featured the case of John O’Donnell, and went on to reveal the startling differences in how dishonesty in the Scottish legal profession is treated lightly compared to England & Wales – where dishonesty is automatically a striking off offence.

Alistair Cockburn, Chair, Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal. Featured in the investigation was the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal (SSDT) Chairman’s attitude towards solicitors accused of dishonesty in their representation of clients legal affairs. During the programme, it became clear that dishonesty among lawyers in Scotland is treated less severely, compared to how English regulators treat dishonesty.

Sam Poling asks: The Scottish Solicitors’ Discipline Tribunal hears all serious conduct cases against solicitors. Last year they struck off nine of them. But is this robust enough?

Alistair Cockburn Chairman, Scottish solicitors discipline tribunal replies: It is robust in the sense that it doesn’t just give convictions on the basis that somebody’s brought before us charged by the Law Society.  We are mindful, particularly when reminded of the lay members, of a duty to the public.

One is always concerned when there is deception but you can have a situation where solicitors simply lose their place. They make false representations in order to improve their client’s position, not necessarily their own. And you would take that into account in deciding what the penalty was but there’s no suggestion that such conduct wasn’t deemed to be professional as conduct. 

Sam Poling: So there are levels of dishonesty which sit comfortably with you, satisfactorily with you?

Alistair Cockburn: No it’s not a question of saying sitting comfortably with me.  I’ve told you…

Sam Poling: OK that you would accept?

Alistair Cockburn: No I’d be concerned on any occasion that a solicitor was guilty of any form of dishonesty.  One has to assess the extent to which anyone suffered in consequence of that dishonesty.  You have to take into consideration the likelihood of re-offending and then take a decision.  But you make it sound as if it’s commonplace.  It isn’t.  Normally dishonesty will result in striking-off.

English QC’s agree ‘dishonesty’ is a striking off offence. The SSDT Chairman’s comments on dishonesty compared starkly with the comments of the English QC’s - who said dishonesty was undoubtedly a striking off offence.

Andrew Hopper QC: “I cant get my head round borrowing in this context. Somebody explain to me how you can borrow something without anyone knowing about it. That’s just taking.”

Andrew Boon Professor of Law, City University, London: “They actually say in the judgement they would have struck him off but the client hadn't complained.”

Andrew Hopper QC “We’re dealing with a case of dishonesty and that affects the reputation of the profession. I would have expected this to result in striking off.”

Andrew Boon, Professor of Law: “The critical thing is the risk factor. If somebody has been dishonest once the likelihood is that they are going to be dishonest again unless they’re stopped.”

As Sam Poling went on to report: “but he [O’Donnell] wasn't stopped. The tribunal simply restricted his license so that he had to work under the supervision of another solicitor.”

LEGAL WORLD’S TRIBUNAL WHERE LAWYERS APPEAR IN FRONT OF THEMSELVES:

Just how complex are the rules around prosecutions of solicitors for ripping off their clients?

Notes from the SSDT report reveal the hurdles put in place by the legal profession to protect their own …

In cases of professional misconduct the Tribunal will receive a Complaint from the Law Society fiscal which will then be served upon the Respondent. The Respondent has three weeks in which to lodge answers (although extension of time for lodging answers requests are often received and are sometimes granted provided there is a valid reason). The matter will then be set down, either for a procedural hearing, a preliminary hearing or a substantive hearing. Procedural hearings are used to clarify whether or not there are any preliminary issues and identify whether evidence is going to be required. Preliminary hearings are set down where there are preliminary points which have to be decided before the Complaint can proceed to a substantive hearing. These usually take place by way of a debate. At a substantive hearing the Tribunal will either proceed to make a finding of professional misconduct, find the Respondent not guilty of professional misconduct or remit the matter to the Law Society under section 53ZA on the basis that the Tribunal considers the Respondent's conduct may amount to unsatisfactory professional conduct.

If there is a Secondary Complainer involved in the Complaint they only become a party to the proceedings after a finding of professional misconduct is made. Prior to any finding of professional misconduct, Secondary Complainers have no direct input into the Tribunal process. If a finding of professional misconduct is made and if the Secondary Complainer has requested compensation, it will be up to the Secondary Complainer to provide the Tribunal with the necessary evidence. The Tribunal will then decide whether or not it is appropriate to make an award of compensation in favour of the Secondary Complainer. There can be cost implications for the Secondary Complainer if additional Tribunal time is required to deal with their claim and an award is not made in their favour.

In relation to section 42ZA Appeals the Tribunal receives the Appeal either from the solicitor, or from a Lay Complainer. Lay Complainers when making an Appeal under section 42ZA often have difficulty in focusing their Appeal and setting out clearly and succinctly what their grounds of Appeal are. The Appeal should identify any error of fact or law made by the Law Society. The Appeal will be served on the Law Society and the Solicitor/ Lay Complainer and three weeks are allowed for the lodging of answers. Again there may be circumstances when an extension of time for lodging answers is given.

The Tribunal cannot give Lay Complainers advice with regard to the making of their Appeals. The Tribunal however does understand that it is difficult for Lay Complainers to deal with the formal Tribunal process and guidance notes have been made available on the Tribunal's website. If Lay Complainers are unable to put their Appeal in the proper form, despite having been given warning in terms of Tribunal rule 23 and being given the opportunity to amend, the Appeal may be struck out as being manifestly unfounded. Procedural hearings are usually held for section 42ZA Appeals so that it can be clarified whether or not the matter is to proceed by way of submissions or whether the facts are in dispute. Sometimes there are three parties to 42ZA Appeals being the Appellant, the Law Society and the solicitor/Lay Complainer, in whose favour the Law Society previously made a Determination.

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

When are we going to learn?

The SSDT is the Law Society of Scotland?

The job the SSDT does is to pretend that the SSDT is independent of the Law Society of Scotland, in order to trick the Scottish People into thinking that the Law Society of Scotland is somehow remote from the process and is not committing a criminal offence by interfering in the justice process and making sure their member lawyers are protected, thereby making sure that these criminal Scottish lawyers are protected and left to cause further erosion of standards?

Anonymous said...

Surely if get so the stage a lawyer is in front of a tribunal there has to be a level of dishonesty on the part of the lawyer in whatever the complaint was in the first place?

I guess the best thing to do is stay the heck away from Scottish lawyers!

Anonymous said...

"where lawyers appear in front of themselves" just about sums up the whole damn thing of lawyers looking after their own buddies!

Anonymous said...

Reading through this report it is obvious most of the cases against solicitors should be criminal prosecutions instead of some lawyer love in at the old Scotsman building

Anonymous said...

I thought that the police had moved in to the SSDT to shut them down because of the corruption exposed by the BBC's documentary Lawyers Behaving Badly.

Turns out I was wrong and the SSDT have been allowed to continue business as usual.

What kind of country are we living in.

Anonymous said...

It would be interesting to know how many Scottish lawyers paid their SSDT fines and costs awarded against them or indeed how many Scottish lawyers paid a blind bit of notice about any SSDT Decision?

Scottish lawyers know that the SSDT is a sanitising tool of the Law Society of Scotland, whereby crooked lawyers are routinely let off with committing crime?

It is a widely held belief in the 'profession' that the SSDT is known as 'The Edinburgh Lunch Club' as they pay more attention to their lavish, expensive lunches than complying with the law to regulate Scottish lawyers?

Anonymous said...

If crime detection at Police Scotland operated the same way as the Law Society and ssdt no one would ever be arrested or convicted!

Anonymous said...

We are going to continue to see sliding standards and non-protection of the public as long as we have Scottish lawyers regulating and assisting other Scottish lawyers to continue to commit crime.

Anonymous said...

It has taken 11 years for the Law Society of Scotland to stop a notorious crooked Scottish lawyer from his campaign of crime.

This says it all.

The Law Society of Scotland would rather protect their own crooked Scottish lawyers and subvert the law in doing so, than protect the Scottish Public.

How the police & MSP's have allowed this to go on for so long is a National Disgrace!

Anonymous said...

I see you included the LBB quotes again,demonstrating this so-called 'tribunal' has zero credibility after the bashing from the beeb.

Anonymous said...

Hearings in public says Mr Cockburn?

Well not really considering the hearing about my solicitor was supposedly cancelled and I was told not to attend then found out a few weeks later it went ahead in some kind of closed hearing and of course let off.

The entire thing was a sham from start to finish along with all the lying letters from the Law Society of Scotland

Anonymous said...

Yes there is no regulation of lawyers, that is why they are all crooks. Clients are regulated by the Law Society SLCC and SSDT in that they are blocked from justice. If anyone trusts a Scottish lawyer they are mad.

Anonymous said...

As you say, the Tribunal's own rules governing applications make clear that the process is weighted against an applicant from the start.

End self regulation NOW!

Anonymous said...

Obviously no one has any chance in making a complaint about a bloody lawyer and they protect each other just like bankers and the rest of the rip off merchants.

Anonymous said...

Senior partner told a meeting last week "The SSDT only published their report in electronic format this year because it is not worth the paper it is printed on"

Everyone laughed then someone mentioned Cockburn on that BBC proggie..

Anonymous said...

Excellent article that maintains the high quality of this blog, well done Mr Cherbi

Anonymous said...

Solicitor gets jail at last although I suspect only because the media are watching

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-31926730

Solicitor jailed over embezzlement from Dumfries firm

A solicitor who embezzled £13,000 of clients' money at a law firm in Dumfries has been jailed for 12 months.

At Dumfries Sheriff Court, Steven Crommie, 37, was told he had broken a trust with his firm and with clients.

Crommie, from Reddingmuirhead in Falkirk, admitted committing the offence on various dates between April 2013 and February last year while he was a director of Bell Park Kerridge.

The court was told that the firm opened in Dumfries in 2012.

Crommie had been part of the operation.

Personal difficulties

An investigation started after it was found that he was taking cash from clients.

The clients involved have been fully compensated, the court heard.

Solicitor Alastair Bryce said that Crommie, who had been a solicitor for 15 years, had co-operated fully with the investigation when he was confronted.

He said he had been enduring some personal difficulties and it was a relief when the matters came to light.

Anonymous said...

The example of the jailed lawyer should be applied to all those in the report and any lawyer now facing a complaint such as fraud or whatever and when they are jailed full compensation has to be paid back to the person the lawyer ripped off.

Anonymous said...

The programme should have been called Lawyers allowed to behave badly. There is no regulation of these crooks and that is fact.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Surely if get so the stage a lawyer is in front of a tribunal there has to be a level of dishonesty on the part of the lawyer in whatever the complaint was in the first place?

I guess the best thing to do is stay the heck away from Scottish lawyers!

15 March 2015 at 20:02
£££££££££££££££££££££££££££££

This is a very common misunderstanding of the corrupt system.

For a case to be prosecuted to the SSDT (by the Law Society) the case first has to be referred there by the Law Society's Regulation Committee and by the Council of the Law Society no less.

This means that the Law Society have unanimously stated that the crooked lawyer is capable of being proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt based on the factual information.

Then when you consider that the Law Society select their preferred Scottish lawyer to prosecute the crooked lawyer before the SLCC (giving them Instructions in the process) it shows that it is a formality for a successful prosecution.

But I hear you say what about the crooked lawyers who are regularly let off Scot-Free.

The obvious answer to this is that, given the explanation of the system above, this is a simple way of spotting corruption where the Law Society have colluded with their SSDT to let the crooked lawyer off.

Simples!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Reading through this report it is obvious most of the cases against solicitors should be criminal prosecutions instead of some lawyer love in at the old Scotsman building

16 March 2015 at 10:02
---------------------------------

One of the main reasons the SSDT help the Law Society is to keep known crooked Scottish lawyers out of jail.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Solicitor gets jail at last although I suspect only because the media are watching

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-31926730

Solicitor jailed over embezzlement from Dumfries firm

A solicitor who embezzled £13,000 of clients' money at a law firm in Dumfries has been jailed for 12 months.

At Dumfries Sheriff Court, Steven Crommie, 37, was told he had broken a trust with his firm and with clients.

Crommie, from Reddingmuirhead in Falkirk, admitted committing the offence on various dates between April 2013 and February last year while he was a director of Bell Park Kerridge.

The court was told that the firm opened in Dumfries in 2012.

Crommie had been part of the operation.

Personal difficulties

An investigation started after it was found that he was taking cash from clients.

The clients involved have been fully compensated, the court heard.

Solicitor Alastair Bryce said that Crommie, who had been a solicitor for 15 years, had co-operated fully with the investigation when he was confronted.

He said he had been enduring some personal difficulties and it was a relief when the matters came to light.

18 March 2015 at 01:13
----------------------------------

The only crooked lawyers who are not saved by the SSDT are the ones who won't play ball with the law society and do their dirty deeds.

Anonymous said...

A criminal court would have jailed this crook for 10 years.

Another case of one rule for crooked Scottish lawyers and another rule for every other crook.

First Class Crooks

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Hearings in public says Mr Cockburn?

Well not really considering the hearing about my solicitor was supposedly cancelled and I was told not to attend then found out a few weeks later it went ahead in some kind of closed hearing and of course let off.

The entire thing was a sham from start to finish along with all the lying letters from the Law Society of Scotland

16 March 2015 at 19:00
--------------------------------------

This is one of the many lies spouted by the SSDT as truth.

By law they are supposed to have ALL hearings in public but they have all of the contentious/ crooked hearings secret behind closed doors so that the Scottish public are deceived.

Anonymous said...

That's 31 free lunches

Anonymous said...

Can someone explain to me why the SSDT Chairman Mr Cockburn is still in a job after being exposed in the terrific BBC documentary 'Lawyers Behaving Badly' as being the author of the SSDT 2010 Report which revealed that Scottish lawyers who were thieves were described as 'Borrowing Without Consent' in an outrageous attempt to excuse their crimes?

Is it because the Law Society of Scotland need him to stay where he is to continue to do what the Law Society of Scotland want him to do to keep letting Scottish crooked lawyers off Scot-Free?

If Scotland had a trustworthy independent police force, would these crimes against the Scottish People be allowed?

Anonymous said...

The BBC's Expert Panel of English Legal Experts were apoplectic with disbelief that the Law Society of Scotland and the SSDT were one and the same and were Hell-Bent on defying the law when it came to regulating their own, as if the law of the land does not apply to them.

The implication being that had Scotland been under the England & Wales Regulatory standards for lawyers, Scotland would have several hundred Scottish crooked lawyers that would have been struck-off.

This adds truth to the feeling that as far as Scottish lawyers are concerned, Scotland is a lawless State.

Anonymous said...

"Lawyers appear in front of themselves" - too bloody right your description!

Anonymous said...

You just need to go to the SSDT Website to look through the cases to read what a stitch-up organisation it is?

The victims of Scottish lawyer's are treated as if they are a black person in 1930's Southern States of USA?

Anonymous said...

There is no such thing as the SSDT.

It is just the Law Society of Scotland under a different name.