Daviesbv Bar Standards Board

Disciplinary tribunals must give adequate and intelligible reasons which engage with the parties’ principal contentions and explain, in broad terms, why the decision was reached. Conduct may amount to professional misconduct without proof of intention where a reasonable observer would regard it as likely to bring the profession into disrepute. A tribunal must assess the whole context, but conduct by a barrister who uses professional status and an inapplicable legal principle to fortify a threat against a lay person may itself constitute serious professional misconduct.

The appellant, a barrister, appealed against a disciplinary tribunal’s majority decision finding him guilty of professional misconduct and fining him £500. The tribunal found that he had threatened to sue his dentist and had reinforced the threat by relying on his professional status, claimed expertise and the legal principle of restitution. A further allegation concerning a demand for £10,000 was dismissed.

The appeal challenged the adequacy of the tribunal’s reasons, the treatment of the surrounding context and the seriousness of the conduct. The central questions were whether the tribunal had properly reasoned its findings and whether the proved conduct fell within paragraph 301(a)(iii) of the Code of Conduct.

1. The appeal was dismissed. The tribunal’s reasons were adequate and intelligible. It explained why it preferred the dentist’s evidence, identified the contemporaneous documents supporting that evidence and explained why one limb of the charge was not proved.

2. A tribunal need not address every sub-issue under separate headings if its reasons, read fairly, show that it engaged with the substance of the issues. The tribunal was entitled to find the first two limbs of Charge 1 proved while rejecting the third limb.

3. The proved conduct was an abuse of the appellant’s position as a barrister and was likely to bring the legal profession into disrepute. Threatening a lay person with proceedings while asserting professional status, expertise and an inevitable victory, and invoking an irrelevant legal principle to support the demand, was sufficiently serious to amount to professional misconduct under paragraph 301(a)(iii).

4. Intention was not an essential requirement for professional misconduct. The relevant question was whether a reasonable observer would conclude that the conduct was likely to bring the Bar into disrepute. The tribunal was entitled to reach that conclusion on the facts found.

5. The tribunal was required to consider the whole context surrounding the allegations. It had heard the evidence and considered the relevant documents, and its reasons showed that it had done so.

• High Court (Administrative Court): appeal from the decision of a three-person disciplinary tribunal of the Council of the Inns of Court dated 22 January 2014. The tribunal found Charge 1 proved by a majority and imposed a fine of £500; Charge 2 was unanimously dismissed.