Pybus v Office for the Supervision of Solicitors

Permission to appeal may be refused where the proposed appeal has no realistic prospect of success, even if there is some force in complaints about the lower court’s reasoning or sympathy for the applicant’s position.

Where intervention in a solicitor’s practice remains in place, withdrawal need not be ordered merely because the solicitor seeks access to files to recover fees. Supervised access may provide an adequate and proportionate means of achieving that purpose. Procedural complaints about delay or filing irregularities will not justify an appeal where the substantive challenge cannot realistically succeed.

Mr Roy Pybus sought permission to appeal in four related matters arising from disciplinary proceedings and interventions in his solicitors’ practice.

The applications concerned decisions of the Divisional Court, Lloyd J and Patten J. They included challenges to the refusal to extend time, refusal to adjourn or order disclosure, and refusal to withdraw interventions imposed by the Law Society. The principal practical issue was whether supervised access to files adequately enabled Mr Pybus to recover fees without ending the intervention.

He also sought an adjournment because of stress and medical evidence, and argued that the disciplinary tribunal had acted wrongly in proceeding in his absence.

1. Applications refused. Sir Anthony Evans declined to adjourn the hearing. Although Mr Pybus produced medical evidence concerning stress, he conducted the hearing clearly and competently.
2. The challenge to Patten J’s refusal to withdraw the interventions had no realistic prospect of success. The judge was entitled to conclude that withdrawal would serve no useful purpose because supervised access to the relevant files was available. That arrangement enabled Mr Pybus to pursue outstanding fees while protecting client interests and preserving the statutory machinery under which sums recovered would be held for those beneficially entitled.
3. The application concerning Lloyd J was also hopeless. That application had effectively sought an adjournment of the hearing before Patten J. The hearing had taken place, and the issue of access to documents had been dealt with by Patten J. Lloyd J was entitled to regard the disclosure application as made too late.
4. The application against the Divisional Court’s refusal to extend time was refused. The court had been entitled to consider Mr Pybus’s previous history of delay, the public interest in the prompt regulation of the solicitors’ profession, and the absence of any realistic prospect that an appeal against the disciplinary tribunal’s substantive findings would succeed. Any uncertainty in the Divisional Court’s treatment of the distinction between proceeding in Mr Pybus’s absence and deciding the allegations on their merits did not alter the outcome.
5. The court deliberately concentrated on the substantive merits rather than the procedural complications. The applications were therefore refused regardless of whether extensions of time were required.

• Divisional Court: refused Mr Pybus’s application concerning the disciplinary tribunal’s decision and refused an extension of time.
• High Court, Chancery Division, Lloyd J: refused the late application for documents and related relief.
• High Court, Chancery Division, Patten J: refused applications to withdraw two interventions in Mr Pybus’s practice, holding that supervised access to files adequately addressed his fee-recovery concerns.
• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): refused all four applications for permission to appeal, together with the associated applications for extensions of time.