A tribunal finding at the Bar: conflicts, advice and supervision

This digest relates to cases published by the respective regulators during week ending 17 July 2026 which have sufficient detail to allow us to comment.

The barrister did not disclose to clients investing in proposed development projects that he and his law firm, M-R Solicitors LLP, had a connection to or an interest in businesses involved in those projects, and allowed the firm to act where he knew, or ought to have known, that there was a conflict of interest or a significant risk of one. He did not adequately advise those clients of the risks inherent in the investment schemes. He did not ensure clients were informed about issues relating to planning permission before their funds were released to the property development company. And he did not provide adequate supervision to a junior staff member who was representing clients on the projects. The sanction was an order that the BSB not issue the barrister with a practising certificate for nine months, with costs of £4,980. The finding is open to appeal. 

Competence mapping (BSB Professional Statement for Barristers) 

The conflict findings sit squarely within competence 2.1, which requires barristers to act with the utmost integrity and independence at all times. The Professional Statement spells out the expected behaviours: identifying potential conflicts of interest, being open about them, declaring them formally and being prepared to exclude oneself from acting. In Handbook terms the charged duty was Core Duty 5, the duty not to behave in a way which is likely to diminish the trust and confidence which the public places in the barrister or in the profession. 

The advice failings engage competence 1.6, providing clear, concise and accurate advice and taking responsibility for it, and competence 3.5, which asks barristers to keep clients informed of key facts and issues, including risks, in a clear and timely manner. A client deciding whether to release funds to a developer needed to know the planning position; the competence the Professional Statement describes is the discipline of telling them before the money moves. 

The supervision finding may carry the most transferable lesson. Competence 3.2 expects barristers to delegate to and supervise others effectively, and the BSB maps it to Core Duty 10, the duty to take reasonable steps to manage one’s practice competently and in a way which achieves compliance with legal and regulatory obligations. Where supervision failings appear on the register, they tend to appear alongside exactly the client failings seen here; the junior staff member was left to represent clients on transactions the barrister himself had not squarely explained to them. 

The really interesting dimension of this decision is looking outside the BSB environment and at what if anything was the SRA’s involvement in this case. The practitioner is also a qualified solicitor, and the SDT considered the same four failings in SRA v Waheed Ur Rehman Mian (case number 12646-2024) at a hearing on 4 and 5 February 2025, in a judgment dated 4 April 2025. All allegations were proved and the tribunal ordered a six month suspension from practice as a solicitor, together with costs of £40,218.40. The SDT’s judgment adds two details the BSB register does not carry due to the context: the practitioner was an owner, the COLP and the COFA of the firm, and the developer’s collapse into administration in November 2019 meant that investor clients lost their deposit monies. Some seventeen months separate the two tribunals’ decisions on the same facts.  

The SRA solicitors’ register shows that the firm, M-R Solicitors LLP closed on 21 January 2026 and there are currently no regulatory decisions published on its record. At the time of writing, it still has a LinkedIn profile.  

This decision is also timely considering the Legal Services Consumer Panel which in its  position paper published this month, calls for a single disciplinary process for the legal professions given the inconsistencies caused by multiple regulators who, as can be seen here, may result in overlapping, or inconsistent approaches which undermine fairness, transparency, and public confidence. The paper, A Regulatory Framework for the Future, puts the point in the words of the Panel’s Chair, Tom Hayhoe: “A unified disciplinary pathway would strengthen accountability and reduce duplication.” Its ten recommendations reach wider still, including a single independent regulator in place of the eight frontline regulators and a single universal compensation scheme for consumers of legal services. Whatever view one takes of that destination, two tribunals, two sanctions and a seventeen month interval over one set of facts is a working example of the duplication the Panel describes. 

Two June judgments from the SDT: the litigant in person and the private investigator 

The SDT published no new judgment last week, which gives me room to repair a gap. Two judgments from hearings in May and April were published recently in the SDT’s archive.  

The first is SRA v Clive Graham Wood (case number 12833-2025), from a hearing on 7 and 8 May 2026. A sole practitioner in family law, admitted in 1982, acted for a father in child arrangements proceedings. The mother, a litigant in person, declined more than once to give the solicitor her telephone number and address, telling him she had already filed them with the court. Between 13 and 21 July 2022 he asked four times. He then instructed a private investigator, obtained her likely address and telephone number, and passed them to his client outside the court process. The Family Procedure Rules entitle a party to withhold contact details unless the court orders disclosure. The tribunal found that the practitioner knew the correct route, had identified it himself in his first email to her, and consciously chose  to ignore the correct route. The allegations were found proved save for one limb, with breaches of Principles 1, 2 and 5 and of paragraph 1.2 of the Code of Conduct, which prohibits abusing one’s position by taking unfair advantage of clients or others. The sanction was a fine of £17,500, with costs of £15,000. 

Two of the tribunal’s observations carry the competence lesson. The first is that the practitioner “fundamentally misjudged the situation confronting him”: he assessed his client as presenting no risk and the opposing party as not vulnerable, and he accepted with hindsight that both assessments were flawed. The second is that “A person may be resolute in the assertion of their rights whilst simultaneously being in a vulnerable position.”; the procedural rules exist to protect parties regardless of how firmly they express themselves. 

Competence mapping (SRA Statement of Solicitor Competence) 

The judgment reads as a study in competence A5, applying understanding, critical thinking and analysis to solve problems, and within it A5a., assessing information to identify key issues and risks. The risk assessment here was of people: a client taken at face value after one home visit, and an opposing party, acting as a litigant in person, whose firmness was mistaken for invulnerability. Competence A1c., identifying the relevant SRA principles and rules of professional conduct and following them, is engaged because the practitioner knew the procedural route the Family Procedure Rules prescribed and departed from it. Competence C3, establishing and maintaining effective and professional relations with other people, reaches beyond clients to the unrepresented party on the other side of a matter; the tribunal’s finding of an unnecessarily partisan approach describes the moment professional distance was lost. The reflective point sits at competence A2, reflecting on and learning from practice: the practitioner told the tribunal that with hindsight his assessments were flawed. The Statement of Solicitor Competence asks for that reflection before the event, not after it. 

The second June judgment: all allegations dismissed 

The second is SRA v Richard Alexander Dobson (case number 12783-2025), from a hearing on 14 to 16 April 2026, and it ended differently: every allegation was dismissed. A solicitor admitted in 1977, a director  at his firm, acted for a client facing a claim between February 2020 and September 2021. The litigation went badly. Court directions were not complied with, the defence was struck out and a default judgment was entered in March 2021. The SRA alleged that the solicitor had failed to act in the client’s best interests, had not been open with her about what had happened, and had produced file notes and correspondence giving the misleading impression that he was not fully aware of the reasons the defence had been struck out. He denied the allegations in their entirety. 

The tribunal heard the practitioner cross examined at length and found him a thoughtful and reflective witness, truthful and honest in his evidence. It accepted that parts of the underlying service had gone wrong: he delayed engaging with the claimant’s solicitors, and he did not tell the client about the judgment. But the parties agreed that the Principles and Code paragraphs pleaded all carried an inherent requirement of seriousness and culpability which had to be proved, and the tribunal found that threshold was not met; his failure to ensure his client complied with the order, “while regrettable, was not serious and culpable from a regulatory standpoint”. The allegation of creating a misleading impression turned on his state of mind at the time, and it was not proved. All allegations were dismissed, with no order as to costs, and the tribunal found that the case had been properly brought. 

Competence mapping (SRA Statement of Solicitor Competence) 

A dismissal earns its place in a competence digest because the tribunal separated two things that are easy to blur: service which falls short and conduct which is serious and culpable. The service failings the case described still invoke  the Statement of Solicitor Competence . Keeping a client informed when litigation deteriorates is the competence C2 territory of managing client expectations (C2f.) and responding to clients’ concerns (C2j.); the confusion over which documents had been received and scanned touches competence D2, keeping accurate, complete and clear records. Yet the tribunal’s finding that these fell below no regulatory threshold is itself instructive: the Statement of Solicitor Competence exists so that practitioners and firms can catch and correct this kind of drift long before a tribunal is asked to consider it. And the quality the tribunal credited in the practitioner, thoughtful reflection under long cross examination, is the very quality competence A2 asks solicitors to bring to their practice, reflecting on and learning from what has gone wrong. 

Missed opportunity: earlier, more cost effective resolution through remediation 

The tribunal’s findings on the service failings deserve their own frame. As stated at paragraph 1 of the judgment, the allegations were that the solicitor failed to respond substantively to the claimant’s solicitors before proceedings were issued, failed to comply with court directions, failed to take any or adequate action to set aside the default judgment of March 2021, and failed to be open with his client about what had happened. The tribunal accepted that some of this occurred: engagement was delayed, and the client was not told about the judgment. What it rejected was the elevation of those service failings into serious and culpable misconduct. 

That gap is the missed opportunity. If the SRA had powers to resolve concerns of this kind at an earlier stage through remediation, targeted training, competence support and a review of the systems which let a court deadline pass unnoticed, the failings the tribunal described could have been addressed years before a three day contested hearing at which no order for costs was made. The client would have been better served, the practitioner spared years of proceedings, and the regulator’s resources reserved for the conduct which genuinely calls for prosecution. Remediation of this kind is also the cheaper and quicker route, and it carries no risk to the public: the failing is corrected sooner, not merely punished later. 

SRA regulatory disposals this week 

Nine SRA outcomes were published during week ending 17 July 2026. Below I deal with four of them which contain sufficient detail to comment upon competence. Three concern the client account; the fourth concerns anti money laundering systems. 

A law firm was fined £18,552 after a forensic investigation found that for five consecutive accounting years it had failed to obtain accountants’ reports within six months of the year end, and to deliver the qualified reports to the SRA, breaching rule 12.1(b) of the SRA Accounts Rules 2019. Client funds of approximately £113,560.32, including 14 balances over £500 and some dormant since 2019, had accumulated in the client account with no valid reason to hold them, contrary to rule 2.5 of the SRA Accounts Rules, which requires client money to be returned promptly once there is no longer any proper reason to hold it.  

In competence terms this is D2, keeping accurate, complete and clear records, and D3, applying good business practice, working alongside competence A1c, identifying and following the rules of professional conduct. The accountant’s report is not paperwork for its own sake; it is the mechanism by which a firm proves to itself, and if necessary the regulator annually, that client money is where it should be. The penalty was reduced by 20 per cent for early admissions, cooperation and the resources devoted to putting matters right. 

A former partner at a London firm, who led its yacht work, agreed a fine of £24,862 after authorising 22 payments from the client account, totalling €150,410.24 and $262,427, for crew salaries, hardstanding, management fees, storage fees and insurance connected to a client’s seized yacht. None of the payments was a necessary part of the regulated legal services being provided, so the client account was operating as a banking facility, in breach of rule 3.3 of the SRA Accounts Rules and Principle 2 of the SRA Standards and Regulations. The competences engaged are A1c. and D3 again, with a particular edge: each individual payment doubtless felt like client service. Recognising that a pattern of helpful payments has quietly crossed a regulatory boundary is an act of analysis, the skill expected in accordance with competence A5a. of assessing information to identify key issues and risks, applied to the firm’s own ledger. The fine was reduced by 25 per cent for early admissions and cooperation, and the agreement records the solicitor’s insight and regret. 

A sole practitioner, who was also his firm’s COLP and COFA, was rebuked under a regulatory settlement agreement after rental income from two longstanding clients’ properties, £550 and £450 per calendar month, passed through the client account from October 2008 and September 2020 respectively. The conduct came to light through a media report that the local council had issued a civil penalty of £8,400 for property management activity carried out without membership of a client money protection scheme. The breaches span four generations of rulebook, from the Solicitors Accounts Rules 1998 to the SRA Accounts Rules 2019. That longevity is itself the competence point. Competence A2 requires solicitors to maintain their competence and keep their understanding of the law up to date; an arrangement set up in 2008 had become squarely prohibited long before it stopped. There was no dishonesty, no client loss and no misapplication of funds; the practitioner cooperated fully and the activity has ceased. 

A law firm agreed a fine of £13,462 over its anti money laundering systems: no documented firm wide policies, controls and procedures between June 2017 and February 2019, and policies which were never fully compliant from March 2019 until November 2025, more than eight years after the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 came into force. As last week, the behaviours matter more than the label. Keeping up to date with and following the law governing the way a firm works, paragraph 3.1 of the Code of Conduct for Firms, is the firm level mirror of competence A2; building controls which answer the risks identified in a risk assessment is competence A5a. applied at scale, with D3, good business practice, underneath. The mitigation deserves reading: early acknowledgment, remediation through to full compliance, cooperation and no evidence of client harm, all reflected in a reduced penalty. 

Closing thoughts 

The thread running through this week’s decisions is time. Every failing here lived quietly for years before regulation reached it: rental income moving through a client account from 2008, anti money laundering policies out of step for more than eight years, dormant balances accumulating since 2019, conflicts of interest from 2017 to 2019 which two tribunals were still sanctioning in 2025 and 2026, and service failings from 2020 and 2021 which a tribunal dismissed in 2026. By the time a competence failing reaches a published decision it has usually been a fact of someone’s practice for years, and the cost of putting it right has multiplied for everyone: the client, the practitioner, the regulator and the profession which funds the process. The competence frameworks are written for the other end of that timeline. A2 and A5 of the Statement of Solicitor Competence, and competences 2.5 and 2.6 of the Professional Statement for Barristers, describe the habits of reflection, analysis and keeping up to date which catch drift from competence while it is still cheap to correct. Remediation at the early point is not a soft option; it is the efficient one, and it serves the public better than a sanction years later, because the failing is corrected while clients are still exposed to it. 

There is encouragement here too. Every SRA outcome reported on last week records cooperation, and three record penalties reduced for early admissions and remediation. The decisions continue to show that candour and correction change regulatory outcomes. Competence 2.5 of the Professional Statement, correcting errors and admitting mistakes, and A2 of the Statement of Solicitor Competence, reflecting on and learning from practice, are not only professional virtues; on last week’s evidence they also mitigate negative outcomes and are sound economics. The dismissal belongs in that column as well: a tribunal which tested the allegations, credited a truthful and reflective witness, and declined to turn service failings into misconduct. 

A lesson this week’s decisions teach: competence drift compounds quietly, and the cheapest moment to correct it is always earlier than today. 

Beyond Compliance Limited, for information and educational purposes only. This digest does not constitute legal advice.