A disability rights lawyer has been fined £9,000 by a tribunal after his firm misled insurers and failed to pay disbursements to barristers. Chris Fry, a solicitor for 22 years, was cleared of acting dishonestly or without integrity following a four-day hearing of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal last month.

Fry had admitted failing to run his firm, Fry Law Limited, with effective systems and controls but contested all the other charges.

The tribunal heard that the Solicitors Regulation Authority had received a first report from medical reporting organisation Peak Medical in 2019 that the firm had failed to settle invoices for professional disbursements. Soon after, lender Spectra Limited, which provided funding facilities for disbursements, threatened to place the firm into administration for breaching repayment terms.

An SRA investigation found Fry had submitted a draft PII proposal form to brokers which said the firm had not employed any fee earner in the previous 10 years who had been sanctioned by the tribunal. This was not true, as the firm had employed a solicitor for a year who had previously been fined £5,000.

Fry Limited had also not submitted any details of claims against the firm, despite having seven county court judgments registered against it at the time. 

The SRA submitted that Fry was an experienced solicitor who knew the importance of providing honest and accurate information to insurers.

Fry accepted that some questions in the draft form to brokers had been answered incorrectly but said this was a ‘careless error or misunderstanding’. The tribunal found the form was inaccurate and misleading but that the brokers were in any case fully aware of the regulatory history of the firm and its employees.

The tribunal also heard allegations that the firm subsumed disbursement monies into the general running of the business. Unpaid disbursements coming to £674,000 showed up on the books as a result.

In a statement to the SRA, Doughty Street Chambers said at one point it was owed £505,000 and had secured five county court judgments worth £49,000. Cloisters Chambers reported that it was owed £99,000. Both chambers provided correspondence in which Fry showed he was aware of the outstanding fees.

Fry submitted that whilst he was responsible for financial matters at the firm he had delegated much of that to professional advisers. The tribunal found Fry had failed to run his business in accordance with sound financial and risk management principles, and that the employment of others to run the financial side of the firm did not absolve him of his responsibilities.

In mitigation, Fry said it was his ‘eternal regret’ that counsel had lost out on fees owed to them. He was a dedicated and experienced solicitor who worked in a field of social importance but who was not good at financial management.

Fry, from Sheffield, received national acclaim in 2017 when he successfully represented a wheelchair user in the Supreme Court after they had been denied entry to a bus.

The tribunal said that a £9,000 fine reflected the seriousness of the misconduct. It also ordered that Fry pay £35,000 in costs, although that could not be enforced now due to his financial position.

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