Gadd v Solicitors Regulation Authority

A statutory time limit for challenging a solicitor’s intervention is compatible with Convention rights and ordinarily must be observed. Even if the court can read down the eight-day period in an exceptional case, impecuniosity or lack of legal assistance will not by itself justify an out-of-time challenge. An applicant who lacks the investigation material underlying an intervention may in some circumstances obtain latitude, but must act very promptly once the material is supplied. The procedure protects creditors and clients and also the solicitor’s standing and goodwill. A delay of about a year after receiving the relevant report was fatal.

Mr Christopher Gadd, a solicitor formerly connected with WB Legal LLP and later practising through CGL, challenged an intervention made under the solicitors’ regulatory intervention procedure. The intervention froze practice assets following suspected dishonesty and breaches of accounting rules. Paragraph 6(4) of Schedule 1 to the Solicitors Act required a person served with notice to apply to the court within eight days, on not less than 48 hours’ notice. Mr Gadd instead commenced proceedings more than 12 months after the intervention.

Sharp J upheld summary judgment for the Law Society. The renewed application for permission to appeal argued that the time limit should be read down in exceptional circumstances because of impecuniosity, lack of legal assistance and delayed disclosure of the forensic investigation report. The central issue was whether those matters justified an out-of-time challenge.

1. Application refused. Elias LJ concluded that there was no reasonable prospect of permitting a challenge made approximately a year after the relevant period. Beatson LJ agreed.
2. Paragraph 6(4) of Schedule 1 to the Solicitors Act requires a person served with an intervention notice to apply to the court within eight days and on not less than 48 hours’ notice. The court was prepared to assume, without deciding the point generally, that Convention principles might permit the period to be read down in an exceptional case.
3. Impecuniosity did not justify departure from the time limit. In Pine v the Law Society [2001] EWCA Civ 1574, the court had rejected the argument that the absence of legal assistance in proceedings of this kind was incompatible with Convention law. Holder v the Law Society had taken the same view. There was no material difference in the present case. Mr Gadd was a solicitor capable of addressing the allegations, and his financial difficulties could continue indefinitely, making them an insufficient basis for displacing the statutory period.
4. The delayed provision of the forensic investigation report was a more substantial point. There may be circumstances in which an applicant is prejudiced by not seeing the material underlying an intervention, such that Article 6 considerations justify some departure from the period. However, Mr Gadd knew the essential basis of his complaint when the notice was served and, in any event, took no steps concerning the intervention for approximately 12 months after receiving the report.
5. The urgency of the procedure protects creditors and clients, while also protecting the solicitor’s standing and goodwill from the continuing freeze of assets. The delay therefore could not justify reading down paragraph 6(4) in this case. The order was that the application for permission to appeal be refused.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): renewed application for permission to appeal refused on 6 June 2013. Elias LJ gave the principal judgment and Beatson LJ agreed: [2013] EWCA Civ 837.
• High Court (Queen’s Bench Division): Sharp J upheld summary judgment for the Law Society and dismissed Mr Gadd’s application, holding that the eight-day challenge period was compatible with Convention rights and that the later proceedings could not sensibly proceed.