A suspension for not doing CPD, and for saying that it had been done

This digest relates to cases published by the respective regulators during week ending 31 July 2026 which have sufficient detail to allow us to comment.

As an EPP barrister he was required by rule rQ130.4 to undertake CPD in every calendar year once past the New Practitioner Programme, and he did not. And on or around 3 April 2024 he declared to the Bar Standards Board, in his 2024 Authorisation to Practise, that his CPD was up to date, or that he had completed CPD for the 2023 calendar year, when that was not true; the disciplinary findings record states that this was conduct without honesty or integrity and/or behaviour which could reasonably be seen by the public to undermine honesty/integrity. The sanction was suspension from practice for three months, with costs of £3,000. The sentence has still to take effect and the finding is open to appeal.

Competence mapping (BSB Core Duties and Professional Statement for Barristers)

Core Duty 3 requires that you must act with honesty, and with integrity. Core Duty 5 requires that you must not behave in a way which is likely to diminish the trust and confidence which the public places in you or in the profession. Rule rC8 adds that you must not do anything which could reasonably be seen by the public to undermine your honesty, integrity or independence. The qualification rule is narrower and more practical: rQ133 provides that, subject to rule rQ136, any EPP barrister who holds a practising certificate or certificates during a calendar year must undertake CPD.

The Professional Statement for Barristers describes what the underlying competence looks like. Competence 2.6 requires barristers to practise with adaptability and flexibility, by being self aware and self directed, recognising and acting upon the continual need to maintain and develop their knowledge and skills. Its sub points are unusually concrete for this purpose: 2.6(a) requires barristers to take responsibility for planning and undertaking personal development and learning; 2.6(b) to identify strengths and areas for development and take positive steps to address them; and 2.6(d) to maintain and develop relevant knowledge and skills. A year with no CPD at all is that competence not being exercised, in plain terms, a year in which nothing was planned, nothing was undertaken and nothing was developed.

The declaration engages a different requirement. Competence 2.2 asks barristers to be honest in their dealings with others, and 2.2(c) requires them to ensure that, to the best of their knowledge and belief, any information they give is accurate, true and not likely to mislead. Competence 2.2(b) asks them to be honest about the limits of their knowledge, their experience, qualifications and professional status; a declaration about the currency of one’s own training sits precisely there. Competence 2.1, act with the utmost integrity and independence at all times, is engaged through 2.1(d), comply with regulatory requirements set down by the Bar Standards Board, and 2.1(e), take responsibility for their actions and decisions. Competence 1.16 covers the same ground from the regulatory direction, requiring barristers to comply with regulatory requirements set down by the Bar Standards Board including the Code of Conduct.

Two further competences describe the transparency option that was available and was not taken. Competence 2.5 asks barristers to adopt a reflective approach to their work, enabling them to correct errors and admit if they have made mistakes, and 2.5(c) asks them to identify their errors of judgement, omissions and mistakes and take appropriate action. A missed CPD year, disclosed at the point of the annual declaration, is a regulatory problem. The same missed year, declared as complete, becomes an honesty problem. Competence 4.2 sits underneath both, because competent organisation, in the words of the Professional Statement, includes keeping accurate records and observing deadlines; rule rQ134 requires an EPP barrister to prepare a written CPD Plan setting out learning objectives, to keep a written record of the activities undertaken, and to keep a written record of reflection on that CPD. A practitioner who keeps the plan and the record honestly cannot find themselves signing an inaccurate declaration in April, because the answer is already written down.

Inadequate advice on a home transfer, and where the line was drawn

In SRA v Mark Feely (case number 12859-2025), from a hearing on 22 and 23 April 2026, the Tribunal reprimanded a solicitor admitted in December 2002 who was, and remains, a partner at David Barney & Co. The matter reached the SRA on 1 June 2023, when a former client reported concerns about a property transaction between himself and his son. The transaction transferred the client’s home, his only asset and his residence, into the son’s sole name.

Two allegations were brought. The first was that, when acting on the transfer, the solicitor failed to provide the client with any or adequate information regarding the terms of his instruction and client care arrangements or advice on the transaction, engaging paragraph 3.2 of the Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs, RFLs and RSLs, which requires that you ensure that the service you provide to clients is competent and delivered in a timely manner, paragraph 3.4, which requires that you consider and take account of your client’s attributes, needs and circumstances, and paragraph 8.6, which requires that you ensure that clients are in a position to make informed decisions about the services they need, how their matter will be handled and the options available to them, together with the Principles. The second allegation was that he communicated with or through the son, and took instructions on aspects of the transaction from him, the son being the transferee. Manifest incompetence was alleged as an aggravating factor to both, though it was not an essential ingredient in proving either.

The Tribunal found the first allegation proved on the narrower basis that the information about the terms of instruction, client care arrangements and advice was inadequate, rather than absent altogether. The second allegation was dismissed, and so was the allegation of manifest incompetence. The judgment records the regulator’s case that the solicitor did not open a file, obtain identification or take instructions from the client, did not provide a client care letter or other documentation confirming the nature of the instructions, and that any advice he did give came after the transfer documentation had already been signed and returned. It also records, in the same summary, that the solicitor’s role was an important one and could not properly be treated as a mere formality, referring to the protective function of independent legal advice discussed in Royal Bank of Scotland Plc v Etridge [2001] UKHL 44. His representative pointed to a long and otherwise unblemished career. The Tribunal reduced the costs it ordered to £6,000 to reflect the limited extent of the findings and the admissions made.

Competence mapping (SRA Statement of Solicitor Competence)

This is a client care case before it is anything else. Competence C2g asks a solicitor to agree the services that are being provided and a clear basis for charging; the evidence of that competence, a client care letter and a document confirming the terms of the instruction, was missing at the very start of the retainer. Competence C2b requires information to be provided in a way that clients can understand, taking into account their personal circumstances and any particular vulnerability, and competence C2d asks solicitors to identify and take reasonable steps to meet the particular service needs of all clients including those in vulnerable circumstances. An elderly client transferring his only asset and his home to his son is precisely the circumstance those two sub points describe.

The advice failings sit in section B. Competence B3a requires a solicitor to understand and assess a client’s commercial and personal circumstances, their needs, objectives, priorities and constraints, and B3b requires that advice is informed by appropriate legal and factual analysis and identifies the consequences of different options. Advice given after the documents have been executed cannot do either. Competence C2e, identifying possible courses of action and their consequences and assisting clients in reaching a decision, and C2i, informing clients in a timely way of key facts and issues including risks, describe the same duty from the client’s side. Competence A5a, assessing information to identify key issues and risks, is engaged because the risk in this transaction was visible.

Competence B7a, applying relevant processes and procedures to progress the matter effectively, and competence D1c, meeting timescales, resource requirements and budgets, address the lengthy periods of inactivity the judgment records. Competence D2, keep, use and maintain accurate, complete and clear records, addresses the absence of a file.

The most instructive part of this decision is what was not found. I should caveat this: the Tribunal was not asked to consider the allegations as against the Statement of Solicitor Competence. Manifest incompetence was dismissed, and the sanction was a reprimand. Falling short of the standard the competence statement describes is not the same thing as manifest incompetence, and the Tribunal was careful about the difference. The competence statement exists so that solicitors, supervisors and firms can notice an unopened file, an unsent client care letter and a stalled matter long before a regulator does.

Client money in a personal account, and a form the court relied on

In SRA v Richard Jefferies (case number 12846-2025) the Tribunal dealt with the matter on the papers by way of agreed outcome, and struck off a solicitor admitted in December 1989 who at the material time worked as a consultant for seven different firms of criminal solicitors. Three allegations were admitted. Between 8 October 2021 and 4 December 2022 the solicitor requested and received client money from a client directly into his personal bank account and in cash, in breach of Principles 2 and 5, paragraph 4.3 of the Code of Conduct for Solicitors and rule 2.3 of the SRA Accounts Rules. Between 29 September 2021 and 2 December 2022 he undertook reserved legal work and represented that client in criminal defence proceedings otherwise than through an SRA authorised firm or recognised sole practice, in breach of Principles 2 and 5 and regulation 10.2(b) of the SRA Authorisation of Individuals Regulations. And on or about 2 December 2022 he completed a Form NG Sentence recording that another firm was acting for the client in the criminal proceedings, when he knew that was not true and when that firm had never acted for the client; that was admitted as dishonest, in breach of Principles 2, 4 and 5 and paragraph 1.4 of the Code.

The agreed facts record that he provided no invoices, no receipts, no retainer and no client care letter. The form was received by the Court of Appeal Criminal Division and considered alongside grounds of appeal when that appeal was refused. The Tribunal found the misconduct serious, deliberate or repeated, and not isolated, spanning about a year. In circumstances where dishonesty had been admitted it considered whether there were exceptional circumstances justifying a sanction short of strike off, found none, and ordered strike off with costs of £22,000.

Competence mapping (SRA Statement of Solicitor Competence)

Competence A1c, identifying the relevant SRA principles and rules of professional conduct and following them, is engaged three times over: by the route the money took, by the absence of an authorised practice through which reserved work could lawfully be done, and by the false entry on the court form. Competence A1a, recognising ethical issues and exercising effective judgment, is engaged at each of the same three points. The business competences carry the rest. Competence D3c, applying the rules of professional conduct to accounting and financial matters, addresses client money reaching a personal bank account. Competence D3b, understanding the contractual basis on which legal services are provided, and competence C2g, agreeing the services that are being provided and a clear basis for charging, both address the absence of a retainer, invoices and a client care letter. Competence D2, keep, use and maintain accurate, complete and clear records, addresses the absence of receipts, and competence A2d, maintaining an adequate and up to date understanding of relevant law, policy and practice, covers the authorisation requirement itself.

It is worth putting this case and the previous one alongside one another. Both begin in the same place: no client care letter, no clear record of the terms on which the solicitor was instructed. In the first, that is where the failure largely stopped, and the outcome was a reprimand. In the second, the same gap sat underneath a payment route which breached the Accounts Rules and a false court document, and the outcome was strike off. The paperwork at the start of a retainer is not administration. It is the thing that makes everything after it verifiable.

A conviction, and the seriousness threshold applied again

In SRA v Timothy John Luckhurst-Matthews (case number 12928-2026) the Tribunal struck a solicitor off following his conviction at Newcastle Crown Court on 26 March 2025 for sexual assault contrary to section 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, committed on 9 December 2022 while he was in practice. The certificate of conviction stood as conclusive proof of the underlying facts under rule 32 of the Solicitors (Disciplinary Proceedings) Rules 2019, and the Court of Appeal Criminal Division had dismissed his appeal against conviction. He did not accept the facts underlying the conviction and said he had lodged a further appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, but he accepted that he could not rebut the regulator’s case unless the conviction was overturned, and on that basis accepted the breaches of Principles 2 and 5. The Tribunal noted that he had no previous disciplinary findings and that he had self reported. Costs were fixed at £4,000, the Tribunal having determined that the matter could have been concluded more quickly.

The competence dimension of this case is a precise one, and it is important. Competence A1b asks solicitors to understand and apply the ethical concepts which govern their role and behaviour as a lawyer, and competence A1a asks them to recognise ethical issues and exercise effective judgment in addressing them. Conduct of this kind is not a failure of technical skill but is governed by the overarching SRA Principles in place which reflect the professional principles in section 1(3) of the Legal Services Act 2007. Competence A1c requires solicitors to identify the relevant SRA principles and rules of professional conduct and follow them.

A factor which carries across from earlier editions and cases is the test the Tribunal applied. In approaching the allegation, it had regard to Dentons UK and Middle East LLP v SRA [2026] EWCA Civ 508, in which the Court of Appeal held that there is an inherent requirement of seriousness in determining whether a solicitor’s conduct amounts to breaches of the SRA Principles or the mandatory provisions of the SRA Code. That is the same authority which, applied to a set of ill advised remarks in a police station, produced a dismissal in a judgment published only a week earlier. The competence standard and the misconduct threshold are set in different places, and the space between them is the space in which a practitioner, or a firm, can still put things right without a tribunal. A practitioner who reads only the dismissals will draw the wrong conclusion.

SRA regulatory disposals this week

Eleven SRA outcomes were published during week ending 31 July 2026. Six carry no narrative on which competence can usefully be assessed: two interventions, two sets of conditions imposed on practising certificates, and two notifications of Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal orders, a strike off and a twelve month suspension, whose judgments are not yet published. The remaining five fall into two groups.

Four concern anti money laundering, and the pattern reported in previous editions holds. Three firms were fined over periods running from June or July 2017 into 2024, 2025 or 2026 for not having a compliant firm wide risk assessment, or compliant policies, controls and procedures, or in one case neither. The fourth is different in kind, and it carried a larger fine. A firm acted for a non domestic politically exposed person and associated companies across fourteen residential property purchases between March 2017 and January 2020, and did not have systems which identified the client as a politically exposed person or which established the source of the wealth and funds involved. The decision records that the firm did recognise the client as high risk, but that the enhanced measures the regulations require were not carried out in practice. Recognising risk and doing something proportionate about it are two separate competences, and only the second protects anyone.

The competences engaged across all four are consistent: A2d, maintaining an adequate and up to date understanding of relevant law, policy and practice, because these obligations have been in force since 2017 and were still unmet in 2026; A5a, assessing information to identify key issues and risks, applied to the firm’s own client base rather than to a client’s problem; A5c, evaluating the quality and reliability of information, which is what establishing a source of funds asks of a fee earner; B1c, recognising when additional information is needed, which is the point at which a high risk client should have generated more questions; and D3c, applying the rules of professional conduct to accounting and financial matters. Each of these firms had taken remedial compliance steps by the time its agreement was reached, and every penalty was reduced to reflect that alongside cooperation, with three of the four recording no evidence of harm to clients.

The fifth regulatory outcome is small and easy to overlook. A recognised sole practice was directed to pay a fixed financial penalty of £750, with costs of £150, for failing to notify the SRA promptly of a material change to the information it had previously provided about its compliance officer for finance and administration, in breach of paragraph 3.8(a) of the Code of Conduct for Firms, and for not remedying that breach after being given notice and reasonable time to do so. Competence A1c, identifying the relevant SRA principles and rules of professional conduct and following them, covers the notification duty itself. Competence D3a, demonstrating an adequate understanding of the commercial, organisational and financial context in which a solicitor works and their role in it, covers why it matters. Compliance officers are the route by which a firm’s regulatory obligations are owned by named people, and a register which does not say who they are cannot perform that function.

Closing thoughts

Two threads run through this week. The first is that a maintenance obligation became the charge rather than the background. In the editions I have written so far, keeping competence up to date has appeared as the explanation for some other failing; in the Hunter finding it is the charge itself, and the sanction is a suspension. The Bar’s rules turn competence 2.6, the continual need to maintain and develop knowledge and skills, into a written plan, a written record and a written reflection. That paperwork exists so that the annual declaration is a report of something, rather than an assertion about it.

The second thread is client care. Competence C2g, agreeing the services that are being provided and a clear basis for charging, is not a formality. It is the document against which everything the solicitor later says about the retainer can be tested, and its absence is what allowed one matter to stall and the other to be misdescribed.

Where practitioners are dealing with the stress of investigation or tribunal proceedings, LawCare‘s free and confidential helpline, 0800 279 6888, remains available to anyone in the legal sector.

A lesson this week’s decisions teach: the CPD record and the client care letter do the same job, they are the practitioner’s evidence that what should have happened did, and where that evidence is missing the practitioner carries the risk; the regulator puts it to proof.

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