Clegg v Solicitors Regulation Authority

An appellate court reviewing a specialist disciplinary tribunal must show restraint. It should not rehear the facts or interfere merely because it might have reached a different conclusion. Intervention is justified where findings cannot reasonably be explained or involve an error of principle. The same restraint applies to evaluative conclusions, including findings of professional misconduct.

Integrity requires adherence to the ethical standards of the profession and exceeds mere honesty. Dishonesty is assessed by applying the objective standards of ordinary decent people to the defendant’s conduct, after determining the defendant’s actual state of mind. A solicitor’s lack of financial motive does not preclude findings of want of integrity or dishonesty. Serious findings of both may justify striking the solicitor from the Roll.

Richard Clegg appealed against the decision of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal dated 12 December 2018. The Tribunal had found breaches of the SRA Principles and Outcomes, including want of integrity and dishonesty, arising from the way he dealt with an expert’s cancellation-fee claim and informed his client about it.

The Tribunal applied the criminal standard of proof and ordered that Mr Clegg be struck off the Roll and pay £12,000 costs. The appeal challenged the factual findings, the conclusions on integrity and dishonesty, and the sanction. The central issue was whether the Tribunal had reached findings and evaluative conclusions which the appellate court was entitled to disturb.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Divisional Court held that the Tribunal’s findings of fact and evaluative conclusions were reasonably open to it and disclosed no error of principle.
2. The appellate court was not conducting an entire rehearing. It had to recognise the trial panel’s advantage in assessing oral evidence and could intervene only where findings could not reasonably be explained or justified, or where an evaluation fell outside the range of reasonable and proper conclusions. Regard was also required for the Tribunal’s specialist expertise. The approach was consistent with Solicitors Regulation Authority v Day and others [2018] EWHC 2726 (Admin) and ACLBDD Holdings Ltd v Staechelin and others [2019] EWCA Civ 817.
3. The Tribunal was entitled to find that Mr Clegg had deliberately withheld material information from his client, had created the misleading impression that she was a party to the proceedings, and had failed to explain that the firm’s own failure to notify the expert of the settlement had generated the cancellation fee. The correspondence and surrounding events independently provided strong support for those findings.
4. The Tribunal correctly applied the approach to dishonesty in Ivey v Genting Casinos Ltd [2017] UKSC 67. It was entitled to determine Mr Clegg’s actual state of mind and then conclude that ordinary decent people would regard his conduct as dishonest. A lack of financial motivation did not prevent findings of want of integrity or dishonesty.
5. The Tribunal also applied the approach to integrity in Wingate & Evans v Solicitors Regulation Authority [2018] EWCA Civ 366. Integrity required adherence to professional ethical standards and did not demand perfection, but the conduct here was a serious and deliberate departure from those standards.
6. The sanction of striking off was justified by the findings of serious want of integrity and dishonesty. The specialist Tribunal was particularly well placed to assess the standards expected of solicitors and the need to maintain public confidence. No proper basis existed for appellate interference.

• High Court (Administrative Court): The appeal against the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal’s decision was dismissed. The findings of want of integrity and dishonesty, the striking-off order and the costs order were upheld.
• Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal: On 12 December 2018, the Tribunal found the allegations proved to the criminal standard, ordered that Mr Clegg be struck off the Roll and ordered him to pay £12,000 costs.