TLS and equality of arms – missing in action

ARTICLE

TLS and equality of arms – missing in action

Celebrations are in order – a grievous wrong has been righted. Claire Matthews can once again use her training and experience to work as a solicitor by representing clients. The disciplinary case against her, a young solicitor, was dropped and many of us can appreciate that. Yes, professional practice needs to be promoted and enforced but Claire was struck off for having the sort of lapse of judgement we could all have.

Yet, her story highlights the importance of fairness for solicitors when it comes to disciplining them. The leadership of The Law Society (TLS) should be working on how they can support their members getting the fairness they need.

Just think about how alone Claire must have felt when she was summoned by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) to plead for her career. The Law Society Gazette points out that when she realised she had lost legal documents, she was “overcome by uncontrollable fear, anxiety and panic”.

Solicitors to the rescue of a heroine

Thankfully, she decided to do battle over a two-year period, to defend herself, while having to overcome fears about her future and endure mental stress. That makes her a heroine but where would she have been without the voluntary support she received? No doubt, she’d have been left for dead like an unarmed civilian going up against an SAS hit squad.

To her rescue came around £14,000 from her fellow solicitors through the GoFundMe page she set up, Gideon Habel and Emma Walker from Leigh Day, Mary O’Rourke QC and Rosalind Scott Bell from Deans Court Chambers, Mark Harries QC from Serjeants’ Inn and Marianne Butler from Fountain Court and outrage from Law Society Gazette readers.

Claire was a junior solicitor without the finance needed to adequately defend herself. It cost her £7,000 to support the probono work from Leigh Day and a silk from chambers. She also needed medical experts to present to the tribunal the impact of the ordeal on her mental health. The publicity for the case may have led to a change in SRA activity and they financed medical expert witnesses.

Solicitors need representation

But ordinarily, as Leigh Day have pointed out, there seems to be an assumption that since an individual solicitor is trained and qualified, he or she can do it all themselves They don’t need the representation that the public rightly expects.

The Law Society Gazette quotes from a letter the SRA sent to TLS’ Junior Solicitors Lawyers Division: ‘We need to balance carefully the public interest against the interests of the individual… As you will be aware though, neither a person’s junior position, nor health, will be an answer where the person has been found guilty of culpable dishonesty.’

The Law Society needs to ask itself whether the neglect of equality of arms and the risk that this leads unfairly to some broken careers should continue.

Congratulations, Claire. Well done the ordinary members of TLS. Salut to pro-bono lawyers. But where was the TLS leadership? Sheepishly, staring at their well-polished shoes? The Law Society is best placed to put in place some means whereby solicitors can receive the representation the need. The ball is in their court.

Paul Sharma

Paul Sharma

Immediate past President of Westminster & Holborn Law Society and Council member for the same – now called London Central