A bar tribunal was right to ban a solicitor turned barrister who failed to disclose he was under investigation by the SRA, the High Court has ruled.
Zeeshan Mian was found to have acted dishonestly and was disbarred last year after keeping quiet about the SRA action while he successfully applied for admission to the bar.
Mian admitted professional misconduct but argued that his actions were careless rather than dishonest, and he appealed the finding and sanction in the High Court last month.
In Mian v Bar Standards Board, Mrs Justice Thornton DBE upheld the decision of the Council of the Inns of Court, finding no exceptional reasons to justify anything other than disbarment.
The court heard that Mian was admitted as a solicitor in 2007 and became director of London firm Denning Solicitors.In December 2015, the SRA told him it was starting a formal investigation over an allegation his firm employed a disqualified barrister.
Two months later, Mian applied for admission to the bar as a solicitor, adding with it a certificate of good standing issued by the SRA issued before formal proceedings began. He signed declarations to be admitted to Lincoln’s Inn stating he was not aware of any matter which might call into question his fitness to be a barrister, and further undertaking to flag up if there were any disciplinary proceedings pending against him.
He was called to the bar in November 2016 and practised as an employed barrister. In 2019 he was fined by the SDT.
The bar tribunal found it must have been obvious to Mian he should have declared the ongoing SRA proceedings, and concluded he ‘knew perfectly well about these matters and made a conscious decision to withhold them’. The tribunal’s panel decided by three to two in favour of disbarment, the majority deciding that there were not enough mitigating factors.
On appeal, Mian told the court that when the SRA imposed conditions on his practising certificate in September 2016 he did not consider it relevant. He had believed the SRA had instigated an internal administration investigation, not a ‘proceeding’, so this did not need to be disclosed.
The judge said the tribunal had provided sufficient reasons for finding Mian made a conscious decision to without details about SRA matters.
He had 10 years' experience as a solicitor, he was aware of what the SRA was investigating and any depression he was experiencing at the time did not mean he was unable to make relevant judgements.
The judge added: ‘These findings were arrived at after hearing evidence from the appellant and they are not, in my view, an assessment that the court should interfere with lightly.’
