A private insurance claim, and how narrowly exceptional circumstances are drawn

This digest relates to cases published by the respective regulators during week ending 21 August 2026 which have sufficient detail to allow us to comment.

At 21:39, 10 minutes later, he amended the policy to add the Topstone. The policy insured a different bicycle, a Cannondale Systemsix, at £2,500, and the schedule identified that bicycle and no other bicycle. On 11 April he told the insurer that he had recently submitted details to change the cover to the Topstone because he was moving flat. On 3 May he was interviewed by a claims investigator and said that he had added the Topstone on 8 or 9 April, before the theft. Shown a screen recording timed at 21:39 on 10 April, he accepted the sequence and said he had believed the policy covered any bicycle up to the insured value.

Before the Tribunal, he admitted the substance of the second allegation, including dishonesty, while denying the alleged breach of paragraph 1.4 of the Code of Conduct. He denied the first allegation, which concerned the claim itself. The Tribunal found both proved. It did not accept that he had failed to read the policy, and found that the amendment made 10 minutes after the claim was compelling evidence that he knew the bicycle was not covered and was seeking to create the appearance of cover after the event.

The mitigation advanced was substantial and was taken seriously. A close childhood friend had been murdered in January 2020, with the trial, convictions and sentencing falling either side of the theft. A house purchase collapsed in the same week. There was expert medical evidence that the convergence of those stressors impaired his judgment. He had no previous disciplinary findings, his employer knew of the allegations and retained him, and there had been no repetition. The Tribunal accepted that he was not inherently dishonest. It nonetheless held that the circumstances relied on in mitigation did not sufficiently relate to, or explain, the dishonesty, and that the dishonesty was not momentary; it continued over a period in which there were opportunities to correct the position. He was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay costs of £20,757.

One further finding deserves attention, because it is easily missed. The Tribunal rejected the submission that the absence of financial loss meant that no harm had been done. The insurer had to identify the irregularity, refer the matter on, appoint a claims investigator, correspond, conduct an interview, review the policy records and reach a formal decision. Harm, on that reasoning, includes the time and resource that a false account uses in other people’s hands.

Competence mapping

Competence A1a requires solicitors to recognise ethical issues and exercise effective judgment in addressing them. That sub point is not about knowing a rule. It is about noticing, at the moment a situation arises, that it carries an ethical dimension at all. Competence A1b requires solicitors to understand and apply the ethical concepts which govern their role and behaviour as a lawyer, and the wording matters here, because this conduct happened in the solicitor’s private life and involved no client, no court and no opponent. The competence statement does not confine itself to work done for clients. It speaks to behaviour as a lawyer, which is why a personal insurance claim ended in a disciplinary tribunal. Competence A1c requires practitioners to identify the relevant SRA principles and rules of professional conduct and follow them.

Competence A1d requires solicitors to resist pressure to condone, ignore or commit unethical behaviour. The pressure contemplated by that sub point is usually taken to be commercial, or to come from a client or a colleague. This case is a reminder that it can equally be the accumulation of private distress, and that the competence expects the line to hold under it. That is a strong argument for practitioners under strain to be supported before the moment of decision rather than after it.

The sub point carrying most of the weight, though, is A3b, which requires solicitors to recognise when they have made mistakes or are experiencing difficulties and to take appropriate action. Between 11 April and 3 May 2022 there were repeated opportunities to correct the account given to the insurer, and on the Tribunal’s findings the solicitor knew by 11 April that the bicycle had not been covered by the policy. The finding that the dishonesty was not momentary is, put in competence terms, a finding that the duty to recognise an error and act on it was never exercised. Competence A2b, reflecting on and learning from practice and other people, sits immediately behind it.

A panicked answer in an investigation meeting

Also on 18 August, the Tribunal published its judgment in SRA v Matthew Moss (case number 12910). The matter was dealt with on the papers by way of agreed outcome. The respondent was admitted in May 2019 and joined Optimal Solicitors in September 2019 as an employment solicitor, working mainly from home.

His contract of employment required him to devote his full time, attention and abilities to his duties during working hours, prohibited him from taking other employment or engagement which might interfere with the performance of his duties or conflict with the interests of the firm without the firm’s written consent, and required him to notify the firm of any employment or engagement he intended to undertake. From around 2021 he worked as a legal expert for JustAnswer, a platform which offers the advice of professionals to members of the public, and he never told the firm. The agreed facts recorded that most of the payments exceeded his take home pay from the firm. Screenshots of banking transactions covering July 2023 to January 2024 showed £39,103.25 paid to him.

He was told on 13 May 2024 that he was being made redundant. During the notice period the firm’s legal director, who was also its COLP, formed concerns about the quality and quantity of his work, and was told that a review of email traffic showed a substantial volume of messages sent from his work address to his personal account. At a formal investigation meeting on 7 June 2024 he said that he was not yet undertaking work for anyone else, that he had not worked for anyone else during the preceding four years, that his brother worked for JustAnswer and used his account to be paid, and that he had no involvement beyond accepting those payments on his brother’s behalf. None of that was true. He resigned by email that afternoon. The firm reported him on 20 June 2024 and he cooperated with the investigation, admitting the truth in his first response to the SRA. He admitted the allegation, including dishonesty, and was struck off with costs of £5,759.

The mitigation is recorded at length and is worth reading. An independent psychiatric report recorded that he was likely in an extremely high state of anxiety when questioned and was psychologically overwhelmed, and recorded symptoms of generalised anxiety disorder with panic disorder together with mild to moderate symptoms of clinical depression. He did not suggest that this excused what he said, and accepted that solicitors must be honest under pressure. There was no allegation that client money was misused, that a client was misled or suffered financial loss. However, neither the SRA nor the Tribunal found exceptional circumstances to allow a strike off to be avoided.

Competence mapping

Competence D3a requires solicitors to demonstrate an adequate understanding of the commercial, organisational and financial context in which they work and their role in it. A contract of employment with an exclusivity clause and a notification clause is part of that context, not paperwork sitting outside it, and the firm’s evidence was that it would have treated the arrangement as a conflict of interest and refused permission. This is particularly pertinent given that the individual was engaged as an employment solicitor. Competence C3d requires solicitors to keep colleagues informed of the progress of work, including any risks or problems. A second paid role, undisclosed for three years, is a risk the firm was entitled to know about and could not manage whilst unaware.

Competence A2c requires solicitors to evaluate accurately their strengths and limitations in relation to the demands of their work, and two roles, one of which paid more than the other, is a demand that had to be weighed honestly.

The meeting with the employer engages competence A1a, recognising an ethical issue and exercising effective judgment in addressing it, and competence A1c, identifying the relevant principles and rules and following them. But the sub points I would draw out are A3b and A3c. A3b requires solicitors to recognise when they have made mistakes or are experiencing difficulties and to take appropriate action. A3c requires them to seek and make effective use of feedback, guidance and support where needed. Both are usually read as being about legal work that is beyond a practitioner’s capability. They are not limited to that. A practitioner whose anxiety is at the level this report describes is experiencing a difficulty within the plain meaning of A3b, and the action the competence contemplates includes asking for help before the meeting rather than trying to get through it.

A compliance officer, a client account shortage and her own drawings

A third judgment was published by the Tribunal on 18 August 2026; SRA v Fiona Jane Smith (case number 12849) on 18 August 2026. It confirmed an agreed outcome approved on the papers. The respondent was admitted in November 2000. She was one of the founders and owners of MSP Legal Services LLP and its COFA.

Between 1 August 2021 and 31 March 2023 she caused or allowed a shortage to arise on the firm’s client account, and caused or allowed improper transfers to be made out of it. She admitted the allegations in full, including dishonesty. The SRA intervened into the firm and into her practice on 3 April 2023.

The Tribunal noted the significant drawings she took at a time when money was being improperly withdrawn from the client account, causing a very significant shortage on it, and found that she had breached the trust placed in her to treat client money as sacrosanct. The Tribunal found that the conduct was deliberate, calculated and repeated over a period of time. She was struck off and ordered to pay costs of £41,000.

Competence mapping

Competence D3c requires solicitors to apply the rules of professional conduct to accounting and financial matters, and it is the sub point which most directly describes the role this practitioner held. Rule 8.3 of the SRA Accounts Rules requires a reconciliation of the bank statement balance with the cashbook balance and the client ledger total at least every five weeks, signed off by the compliance officer for finance and administration or by a manager of the firm. Competence D2 requires accurate, complete and clear records to be kept, used and maintained, and a reconciliation is exactly that: a record, the whole purpose of which is to make a discrepancy visible to somebody other than the person who created it.

Competence D3a requires an adequate understanding of the commercial, organisational and financial context in which a solicitor works and of their role in it. The money the owner draws and the money that leaves the client account come out of the same business, and the person who holds the COFA role is the person who is supposed to see that. Competence A5a requires solicitors to assess information to identify key issues and risks, and competence A1c requires them to identify the relevant principles and rules and follow them. What this decision shows is that a designated compliance role is worth only what the person holding it actually does with it. The title confers no assurance on its own.

And of course, the conduct which led to the strike off was inconsistent with competences A1a to A1d, which concern ethics, honesty, professional judgment and following the rules.

An altered fee note, and the client who noticed

The Tribunal published its judgment in SRA v Toby Richard Matthews (case number 12871) on 21 August 2026. The agreed outcome was approved on the papers on 6 August 2026. The respondent was admitted in November 2013 and was a director at Axiom Ince Limited.

On or about 6 May 2022 the solicitor amended counsel’s receipt and VAT invoice so as to give the misleading impression, both to a client and to his own firm, that counsel’s fees had been discounted when they had not been. On or about 16 May 2022, following enquiries prompted by concerns which the client had raised about counsel’s fees, the firm identified a discrepancy in the payment of that fee. Called to a meeting on the same day and asked to explain, he accepted that he had altered the fee note and that he had paid it from the office account of a different client. The firm confirmed that the money had been taken from that second client’s office ledger. He was suspended immediately.

He admitted the allegation, including that his conduct was dishonest. The Tribunal recorded that he had lied to the firm and misled the client about the discount on counsel’s fees and had then attempted to conceal the true position by altering the fee note. It assessed culpability as high and the harm to the reputation of the profession as significant, and noted in mitigation his full and early admissions, his cooperation throughout and his previously unblemished record. He was struck off with costs of £5,000.

Competence mapping

The competence statement deals with costs in plain terms. Competence C2g requires solicitors to agree the services being provided and a clear basis for charging. Competence C2i requires them to inform clients in a timely way of key facts and issues including risks, progress towards objectives and costs. A fee note altered to suggest a discount that was never given is the negation of both. Competence D3b requires an understanding of the contractual basis on which legal services are provided, including how to calculate and manage costs and bill clients.

Competence D2 requires solicitors to keep, use and maintain accurate, complete and clear records. A counsel’s fee note is a record of what a third party charged, and its value to the client, to the firm and to anyone later reviewing the file depends entirely on it being untouched. Competence D3c requires the rules of professional conduct to be applied to accounting and financial matters, and paying one client’s disbursement out of another client’s ledger is where that sub point bites.

Competence C2j is instructive in this case and requires solicitors to respond appropriately to clients’ concerns and complaints. This whole matter surfaced because a client questioned counsel’s fees and the firm looked into it. The client’s question was the control that worked. Solicitors or firms can treat a client’s concerns as an irritant. That is why this competence, which requires a proper response to a client’s concern, is doing more work than it is usually credited with.

Finally, the conduct which led to the strike off, amending counsel’s fee note, sending it to the firm and the client, and using funds from a different client’s office account, was inconsistent with competences A1a to A1d, which concern ethics, honesty, professional judgment and following the rules.

SRA regulatory disposals in the week ending 21 August 2026

The SRA published 11 decisions during the week. Two were interventions into the same practice, made necessary by the death of the sole practitioner in July. One was a decision to refer a solicitor to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, where the allegations are not yet proved and I express no view on them. Three were conditions imposed on practising certificates. Two concerned the control of non lawyer staff: a new order under section 43 of the Solicitors Act 1974 following a conviction for causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving, and a variation to an existing approval of employment. The remaining three are worth setting out.

The first is a regulatory settlement agreement with a firm, Dean Wilson LLP, fined £25,000 with costs of £600 following an anti money laundering desk based review. Between 26 June 2017 and March 2023 the firm’s policies, controls and procedures did not cover, or did not sufficiently detail, the mitigation of risk arising from new products, practices or technologies, the identification and scrutiny of complex transactions, of unusually large or unusual patterns of transactions and of transactions with no apparent economic or legal purpose, additional measures for products and transactions which might favour anonymity, high risk third countries, and the reporting of discrepancies to Companies House. Between 26 June 2017 and 26 September 2024 its client and matter risk assessments were not compliant. Of eight files reviewed, only one contained an assessment at all, and that one had not been fully completed by the fee earner. The form itself did not let the fee earner record the level of risk or the level of due diligence to be applied, and did not address risk indicators such as a politically exposed person or a counterparty based in a high risk third country. The agreement records that the firm cooperated, that there was no evidence of actual harm, and that it now completes assessments on all live in scope files as part of file opening while it works through a backlog of legacy files. The basic penalty of £30,965 was reduced to £25,000 to reflect that.

The second is a fine of £5,276 with costs of £1,350 on a solicitor, Malika Williams-Gregoire, who was the owner, manager, COLP and COFA of a firm. The firm lost its SRA authorisation on 1 November 2020 and thereafter continued to practise and to undertake reserved legal activities for clients while unauthorised. The solicitor also failed to ensure that the firm maintained proper accounting records and books of account, and failed to sign client account reconciliations. A forensic investigation identified a cash shortage on the client account. The decision records that the breaches arose from a reckless disregard of her regulatory obligations, and treats her cooperation as mitigation.

The third is a fixed penalty of £750 with costs of £150 on a firm, CNA Solicitors Limited, which did not submit its workforce diversity data. The firm was given notice on 3 February 2026 requiring it to remedy the breach by 3 March 2026 and, despite reminders, did not do so.

The competences engaged are these. Competence A2d requires solicitors to maintain an adequate and up to date understanding of relevant law, policy and practice, and the money laundering obligations in question had been in force since 2017. Competence A5a requires them to assess information to identify key issues and risks, which is what a client and matter risk assessment is for. Competence B7b requires them to assess, communicate and manage risk in progressing a matter. Competence D2 requires accurate, complete and clear records, because an assessment which nobody records cannot be relied on. Competence D3c requires the rules of professional conduct to be applied to accounting and financial matters. And competence A1c requires the relevant principles and rules to be identified and followed, which is where a regulatory requirement met with inaction eventually ends up.

Closing thoughts

Three of this week’s four judgments concern a solicitor being untruthful to somebody who was not a client and was not a court. An insurer, an employer, and in the fee note case a client and the practitioner’s own firm together. The SRA Principles draw no such distinction, and neither does the competence statement. Competence A1b speaks to behaviour as a lawyer, which is wider than work done for clients, and it is the reason a private insurance claim can end with a strike off.

Two of the four contain expert evidence about the practitioner’s mental health presented to the Tribunal, and both need to be read carefully. Neither Tribunal treated that evidence as amounting to exceptional circumstances such that a strike off could be avoided. What is worth saying is that in both cases the difficulty existed before the moment of decision. Competence A3b requires solicitors to recognise when they are experiencing difficulties and to take appropriate action, and competence A3c requires them to seek and make effective use of guidance and support where it is needed. Those sub points are usually read as applying to work beyond a practitioner’s technical capability. Read as written, they apply just as clearly to a practitioner who is not in a fit state to answer questions honestly under pressure. The profession would lose nothing by reading them that way, and might gain a good deal.

The two accounts cases meet at the same place. In one, a COFA  presided over a shortage on client account while taking significant drawings. In the other, a solicitor holding both compliance roles let her firm trade for years without authorisation and did not sign the reconciliations. Competence D3c requires the rules of professional conduct to be applied to accounting and financial matters, and competence D2 requires records which are accurate, complete and clear. A reconciliation exists so that a problem becomes visible to somebody other than the person who caused it. Where the person who should sign it is the person with most to hide, the control does nothing at all, and that is an argument for firms building a second pair of eyes into the process rather than relying on the title alone.

Where practitioners are dealing with the stress of investigation or tribunal proceedings, or with the kind of pressure described in two of this week’s judgments, LawCare‘s free and confidential helpline, 0800 279 6888, remains available to anyone in the legal sector.

A lesson this week’s decisions teach: dishonesty leaves very little room to manoeuvre. In three of these four cases the first untrue step was followed by another which compounded it, and the tribunals said so in terms. In the fourth the practitioner told the regulator the truth within weeks and was struck off all the same. Competence A3b requires a solicitor to recognise a mistake and take appropriate action, and the action it has in mind is correction. Correction is worth most at the first opportunity, and it loses value with every opportunity that passes.

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