 | HONEST LAWYER PERSECUTED BY LAW SOCIETY
http://www.theherald.co.uk/business/28750-print.shtml
Quashing victory for Robson
SIMON BAIN November 29 2004
The Court of Session has quashed a decision by the Scottish Solicitors
Disciplinary Tribunal to strike off Michael Robson, a principled
solicitor who challenged the legal establishment and took on a slate
of victims of legal injustice – only to find himself overwhelmed by
the demands on his one-man practice.
The opinion of Lords Kirkwood, Maclean and Osborne, that the
tribunal's sentence was "excessive", will be noted by those observers
of the profess-ion who claim that solicitors seen as "troublesome" by
the Law Society of Scotland are unlikely to prosper.
Robson, 52, was a successful lawyer who set up on his own in 1998, and
quickly became a "last resort" for clients whose complaints against
solicitors had been turned away by other practices, and rejected by
the Law Society of Scotland.
In 1999, he publicly challenged the Law Society's master insurance
policy, now under investigation by the Office of Fair Trading, and
criticised its complaints procedure.
Robson said the Law Society had "set up an insurance system which
protects solicitors at the expense of their clients", while its
complaints procedure was "the profession judging its members".
Petitioning the Court of Session for a judicial review of one case
involving misconduct by lawyers, Robson said then that the review
"strikes at the fundamentals of the legal profession".
Less than three years later, his practice was closed down, and Robson
struck off and sequestrated, following zealous policing of his
business by the Law Society on behalf of demanding clients, some of
whose cases the society itself had dismissed.
Robson had been a solicitor for 25 years with an exemplary record when
he was reported in 2001 by the Law Society of Scotland to the Scottish
Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for failing to answer letters.
In January 2002 the tribunal fined him £5000 for profess-ional
misconduct and said he could no longer practice alone. The tribunal, a
body with legal and lay members, ruled that Robson could work for
another firm – but only with the approval of the Law Society. Although
two firms immediately offered him an unsolicited position, the Law
Society refused to approve his appointment, pushing the father of four
into a financial crisis, on top of mounting health problems.
In June 2002 the Law Society reported him a second time to the
tribunal, citing his failure to answer further letters dating from the
previous year – though by this time Robson had already been forced to
shut the firm and make his three staff redundant. Robson pleaded for
an 11th-hour adjournment, as on the day he was unable to attend and
plead mitigation, but the tribunal refused.
The hearing went ahead on October 8, 2002 and Robson was struck off.
The following day, he was sequestrated. He was subsequently diagnosed
with a sleeping disorder.
In their judgment, their Lordships state: "We have taken into account
the fact that there had been no complaint of profess-ional misconduct
when the petitioner had been a partner in two law firms, and that
neither of the complaints which had been made involved any element of
dishonesty. The professional misconduct of which he was found guilty
was undoubtedly serious, but we also have to consider the financial
position in which the petitioner found himself as a result of not
being able to be employed as a solicitor under supervision after March
2002 because (the Law Society) would not approve the firm which had
been prepared to employ him."
The decision to strike Robson off had been excessive, "particularly
having regard to the financial consequences of (the Law Society's)
decision in May 2002 to defer considerat-ion of the application to
employ the petitioner as an assistant".
Robson commented: "These (clients) were people whom the Law Society
had failed to look after. Then they put the boot in, when you are
trying to deal with a very complex situation. It is a bit rich. They
dredged up everything under the sun, for instance they persuaded one
person to make a complaint of misconduct against me. I had been a
solicitor for 25 years and had avoided complaints like the plague."
In 2001 Robson took on a case brought by two bankrupted developers
against the Clydesdale Bank. As an invest-igation by The Herald
revealed, Graeme Duffy and Richard Crocket were only sequestrated as a
result of the disastrous employment by the bank of Euan Wallace, a
well-known Glasgow surveyor who was shortly to be struck off for life
for serious professional misconduct.
Three years later, there is independent evidence that Duffy and
Crocket's property assets in March 2000 comfortably outweighed the sum
for which they were sequestrated by the bank, which therefore acted
wrongly. The developers had at the time just launched a £3m damages
action against the Clydesdale over Wallace's conduct. But since the
demise of Robsons WS, no law firm has been prepared to take their case
to the House of Lords, though Robson subsequently reported the bank
and its solicitors for prosecution on the grounds that a false claim
for bankruptcy had been lodged.
Such daunting cases, however, took their toll on Robsons WS, and on
the health of its founder, who now works as a part-time tennis coach.
The judges quashed the decision to strike him off, and have
substituted a five-year restrict-ion which allows him to work for
"such employer as may be approved by the Council of the Law Society of
Scotland".
The petition to the Court of Session also argued that the tribunal was
"not independent and impartial within the meaning of Article 6(1) of
the European Convention of Human Rights", partly because the Law
Society both brought complaints to the tribunal and appointed its
members. The petition noted that "the Lord President did not have
power to appoint any solicitor member who had not first been
recommended" (by the society), and suggested that a tribunal member's
"prospects of reappointment would be improved" if he consistently
upheld complaints.
It further pointed to the Law Society's own submission to the Scottish
Parliament in June 2002 which suggested that the Judicial Appointments
Board might nominate tribunal members.
The Law Society's response to the court was that this was simply one
of a number of "suggestions as to how the tribunal could be improved".
The judges concluded that because "solicitor members must be
know-ledgeable and experienced and the actual appointments are made by
the Lord President", the appointment procedure did not detract from
the independ-ence and impartiality of the tribunal.
Their lordships dismissed all other objections to the procedure.
Their decision to amend the sentence on Robson was, moreover, reached
"with some hesitation".
In an immediate response to the ruling, the Law Society played down
the judges' ruling that Robson should not have been struck off.
Reporting on the case, its in-house journal gave priority instead to
the fact that the Scottish Solicitors' Discipline Tribunal was found
to satisfy the "independent and impartial tribunal" requirement of the
European Convention.
==========================
via
International Mens Organisation
http://internationalmensorganisation.cjb.net
Fathers Fighting Injustice
http://fathersfightinginjustice.cjb.net
to join email ffiint-subscribe@topica.com
|
|
