SRA uses settlement agreements “to put pressure on solicitors”

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Woolf: Process took far too long

Solicitors need to have confidence that they will be treated fairly by their regulator if they are to be encouraged to admit errors, a former partner suspended for misconduct has argued.

Joel Woolf was critical in particular of the way in which the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) uses regulatory settlement agreements (RSAs) to pressure those it is prosecuting.

In 2023, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) suspended Mr Woolf for a year after finding that he had tried to “trick” an elderly farmer out of part of his protected tenancy in the way he sent notices to quit – a method the then partner at Midlands firm Wright Hassall admitted to his client was considered “sharp”.

A leading legal ethics scholar subsequently argued that the tribunal was wrong not to find Mr Woolf had acted dishonestly.

Speaking yesterday at a Westminster Legal Policy Forum event on ethics, Mr Woolf said he was “incredibly embarrassed” by what had happened; but he had faced the consequences of his actions, served his suspension and was now practising as a freelance solicitor providing family farming succession, rural legal and business advice.

He argued that there were two elements to ethical practice – getting it right in the first place and then getting it right “when it goes wrong”.

“We’ve got to have a process which does not cause individuals to fear it so much that they refuse to acknowledge and accept when they have made a mistake,” he said.

Mr Woolf described himself as “a fairly robust individual”, explaining: “I don’t suffer with stress easily, but this got me close to a really bad place.”

He went on: “The whole process took three years from the point where I volunteered that I had made a mistake – that’s far too long.

“Nine months in, without even knowing what I was to be prosecuted for, I received a phone call from the investigating officer to tell me that he was going to have me struck off…

“I was in bits after that because I loved my work and I loved my job. And to think that I had done something so severely wrong that I deserved to be struck off was anathema to me.”

Mr Woolf said that, shortly before the SDT hearing, the SRA offered to strike an RSA, with his solicitor recounting the message that ‘We will make the pain go away if you agree to being [found] dishonest and we will agree to a six-month suspension’.

He said: “I will remember these words until the day I die.”

“Notwithstanding the thought of admitting to dishonesty when I did not believe I had been dishonest, the fact that the regulator was quite happy for somebody who had admitted dishonesty to remain in the profession after any six-month suspension horrified me.”

His “uncharitable” belief was that the SRA “deliberately increases pressure on people during the prosecution process so that if they are offered an RSA they think ‘I’ve got to make this stop’”.

He was treated for depression during the investigation and the doctor said the best cure would be to end the prosecution.

“The RSAs the SRA offers are to vindicate the SRA more than they are to settle. They ramp the pressure up on the individual.”

He urged solicitors in that situation to think about why an RSA had been offered and the impact it was going to have on them if they accepted.

Mr Woolf added that, when he came to reapply for a practising certificate, “the SRA unilaterally extended my suspension by three months” but the “worst bit” was that the regulator did not ask what he had done over the year to improve his ethical knowledge and understanding.

“As it was, I did do several courses on ethics to ensure that I wouldn’t make the same mistake again,” he said.