SDT: Serious irregularity
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has ordered the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to pay costs of £5,000 after bringing a “flawed and misconceived” case against a non-solicitor.
The tribunal said the evidence “purportedly showing” that Ryan Herrmann had dishonestly held himself out as a solicitor had not been “properly analysed” by the SRA.
The tribunal heard that Mr Herrmann was not qualified but employed as an associate at Morgans Solicitors from August 2018 for around four years.
During this time, Julian Prus-Streicher was principal of the law firm, which “had trading names linked to Herrmann Lawyers LLP”.
Mr Herrmann acted in Children Act proceedings for a client of the firm in 2021, who sought a child arrangements order and a prohibited steps order.
The law firm acting for the respondent made a report to the SRA in October 2021 alleging that Mr Herrmann had held himself out as a solicitor in court proceedings.
Following an investigation, an SRA adjudicator imposed on Mr Herrmann an order under section 43(2) of the Solicitors Act 1974, which prevented him from working for law firms without the regulator’s approval.
The adjudicator found that Mr Herrmann had signed a C100 court application form in February 2021 “on behalf of a client in which he stated that he was a solicitor and partner at Morgans Solicitors, when he was neither”.
Mr Herrmann had also “engaged in negotiations” and “the drafting of a court order in which he referred to himself as a solicitor”. The adjudicator found his conduct had been dishonest.
Mr Herrmann applied to the SDT for a review of the decision, and the tribunal agreed, as did the adjudicator, that the only two options for signing the form were as the applicant or their solicitor (the form has since been changed to refer to ‘legal representative’).
However, the tribunal “disagreed with the adjudicator’s suggestion” that he should have signed in the firm’s name, rather than in his own name.
The SDT also disagreed with the adjudicator’s conclusion that using the term ‘partner’ had not cleared up the position.
“Mr Herrmann said he was a business partner to Mr Prus-Streicher and the deployment of the term by him was, at the most, ambiguous, as the term, ‘partner’ may have a number of meanings.
“The C100 asked merely ‘the position or office held’ and it did not set out within it any excluded definitions of the term partner. The adjudicator had exaggerated the significance of Mr Herrmann’s use of the word.”
On the draft court order, the SDT found the adjudicator had “laboured under a misunderstanding as to the essential facts”.
Her conclusion was “outside the bounds ‘within which reasonable disagreement is possible’”, for the purpose of the rules on review, given the “serious consequences” which flowed from it.
There was “nothing in the final order which referred directly to Mr Herrmann as a solicitor, save for a general reference to ‘the applicant’s solicitor’”, which Mr Herrmann said was the result of an amendment.
The mistake “led the adjudicator into error”, representing a ‘serious or other procedural irregularity’ under the rules.
As the factual matrix underpinning the section 43 order had fallen away, “so did the issue of Mr Herrmann’s dishonesty”. The tribunal quashed the order.
On costs, the SDT said: “The case against Mr Herrmann had been brought on a flawed and misconceived basis in which the evidence purportedly showing that he had dishonestly held himself out as solicitor had not been properly analysed by the SRA to ensure that it accurately supported the case against him.
“Further, nothing had been done to prevent the adjudicator from falling into error. The tribunal had found this to be a serious irregularity.
“It was unlikely that the proceedings would have progressed any further than the complaint stage had the details of the evidence been competently checked by the SRA.”
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