Solicitors

The Solicitors Account Rules 1998 existed both to afford the public maximum protection against the improper and unauthorised use of their money and to assure them of that protection. Solicitors were under a heavy obligation to ensure observance of the rules. A solicitor who discharged his professional duties with anything less than complete integrity, probity and trustworthiness had to expect severe sanctions to be imposed upon him by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, and except in a very strong case, an appellate court should not interfere with the sentence imposed by the tribunal.

The decision whether to strike off or to suspend involved a difficult exercise of judgment made by the tribunal as an informed and expert body on all the facts of the case, and only in an unusual or venial case would the tribunal be likely to regard as appropriate an order less severe than one of suspension.