SDT: Solicitor caused serious harm
A solicitor who asked clients at two different firms to pay fees into his personal bank account because he was in financial difficulties has been struck off.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found that Guy Nicholas Hurst also gave his last law firm a “false warranty” that he was not under any regulatory investigation, when in fact the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) was probing his actions.
Mr Hurst, who qualified in 1997, joined Eric Robinson Solicitors in Southampton as a non-equity partner in 2015 and on two occasions in 2016 asked property clients to pay additional fees of £2,000 and £5,000 respectively into his personal bank account for supposed extra work he had done.
However, there was no evidence that he did any additional work. He left the firm in April 2017, by which time he was a consultant.
The payments came to the firm’s attention some years later, the first in 2021 after the client made a complaint about poor service to the Legal Ombudsman, and the second in 2022 when it received a pre-action letter over alleged negligence. Eric Robinson reported the matters to the SRA and reimbursed the clients.
Mr Hurst did not engage with the SDT proceedings but told the SRA that he had needed money, was going through a divorce and his son was undergoing medical treatment.
After working at two other law firms, he joined listed firm Keystone Law in January 2023 as a self-employed consultant.
As part of the process of joining the firm, he had provided a warranty that he had never been subject to any regulatory investigation.
However, in applying through Keystone for access to Lender Exchange, a portal that allows conveyancers to exchange information with mortgage lenders, he admitted he was under investigation by the SRA. Keystone suspended Mr Hurst and then terminated his contract.
Despite assuring Keystone that there had been no repeat of his behaviour at Eric Robinson, it turned out that he had asked a client to pay him £3,000 directly.
Mr Hurst said this was because he was still in the process of joining the firm and had no business bank account for his trading company, and that he did not believe it was possible for him to be paid via the firm without it.
The SDT found that this excuse was not true, with Keystone providing evidence that, in fact, another client had paid him through the firm at the same time. It reimbursed the client.
The tribunal concluded that Mr Hurst had been dishonest, lacked integrity and breached various other principles.
“The firm’s clients had paid for legal work that had never been done. In addition, the funds that the clients had paid were not insured because the funds were paid to the respondent’s personal account and were, thus, not covered by the firm’s professional indemnity insurance.
“The tribunal considered that the respondent had also misled the firm about the above events as he had kept the firm in the dark about all of this.”
The SDT said Mr Hurst had “fully understood” that his conduct was dishonest. “Whilst he had subsequently changed his mind about of the account of the events, he had initially admitted that it was wrong that he had taken the money from the clients simply because he needed money and had accepted that there had been ‘no excuse’ for his actions.”
His motivation had been “his financial difficulties and personal gain”. Mr Hurst had caused “serious harm to his clients and the reputation of the profession” and the misconduct was aggravated by the fact that it had been “deliberate, dishonest and repeated”.
The SDT struck him off and ordered him to pay costs of £6,283.
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