Power vacuum

The SRA last week made use of new powers to fine a solicitor up to £25,000. Gordon Kemp was fined £15,000 after acting for three clients who were the subject of Court of Protection deputyship orders, and failing to attend to or properly manage their financial affairs or protect their money or assets.

That’s all we know. It is not clear what happened to those clients and whether they received any redress. We don’t know whether Kemp contested the allegations or offered mitigation – both factors crucial to fair and appropriately comprehensive reporting. We are not told the nature of the misconduct or why the adjudicators (whoever they were) decided on £15,000. The findings amount to 38 words, in total.

The notice didn’t even give Kemp’s full name or the year he was admitted. Fortunately, there are no other Gordon Kemps on the roll who might have found themselves subject to disagreeable client and/or media attention.

This won’t do. Regulatory expert Frank Maher suggests the SRA appears to be ignoring the fundamental requirement for open justice and indeed its own statutory obligation to take action which is transparent and accountable. By contrast, in what will presumably be one of the last occasions in which the SDT issues a fine at this level, the case of solicitor Danielle Shawcross was published over 14 pages of detailed summary (she agreed to a £5,000 fine).

The problem seems to be that the regulator has taken on extra powers without adjusting its reporting processes. This was all very predictable. The SRA consulted on extending its fining powers first, before asking in a second consultation how it should report decisions. A response to the second consultation is not due until the new year, so in the meantime the regulator can fine up to £25,000 and tell us as little as it likes about its rationale. The SRA was apparently so keen to deploy its new powers that it neglected to consider how to do so.

One wonders what the SRA’s response would be had a law firm erred, having taken on a new practice area without a clue how to do the work and lacking any evidence it was remotely competent to do so. A fine might be in order, though presumably we wouldn’t be told why.