A senior partner who displayed 'offensive, intimidating and insulting' behaviour towards junior colleagues has been struck off.
Domenico Pisano, 57, admitted to the roll in October 2001, was listed as one of two directors at Dominic Levent Solicitors in north London when he behaved in a way that caused his colleagues harassment, alarm or distress between September 2021 and April 2022. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal also found he made a series of inappropriate and unsubstantiated allegations about colleagues.
Pisano did not appear at the SDT and was not represented. The hearing continued in his absence.
The tribunal heard Pisano, in the presence of a client and her daughter, shouted at a solicitor at the firm and was ‘inappropriately close’ to her face. He also used inappropriate and homophobic language about a former employee of the firm when talking to two colleagues, a solicitor and a paralegal.
Matthew Edwards, for the Solicitors Regulation Authority, said in one incident Pisano showed a colleague, referred to as Colleague 1, an explicit photograph on his phone after talking about his weekend. Pisano said ‘girls’ sent him pictures without him asking. He showed her the photo for ‘a couple of seconds’ before laughing and walking away.
Discussing a second incident involving Colleague 1, Edwards said the paralegal went to work wearing a beige knee-length dress. Colleague 1 was in a meeting room with Pisano when he turned to her ‘and said “I can’t look at you, you look sexy” before covering his eyes’, Edwards said.
The tribunal heard she ‘awkwardly laughed the comment off’ but it made her ‘feel uncomfortable’. She did not wear a dress to the office again until after Pisano left the firm.
In August 2021, a university student was working at the firm on a placement. Pisano shouted at the individual, kneeing the chair he was sitting on and kicked a bag containing empty bottles and his lunchbox. When Pisano kicked the bag, his foot connected with the student.
Pisano also slammed a chair into a storage unit while working with a paralegal, which made her ‘jump and feel scared’, as well as making comments to a senior paralegal likening listening to him to following the teachings of the Qur’an.
Edwards said: ‘The conduct of the respondent, it is the appellant’s case, that shouting aggressively at junior colleagues while in the office, using unsuitable and homophobic language whilst in the office, showing colleagues pornographic pictures stories in his mobile telephone while in the office, physically assaulting members of staff in the office, demeaning a junior colleague while in the office and telling him to follow the teaching of the Qur’an in that context of following his instructions and threatening to end a junior colleague’s career was clearly inappropriate.
‘His conduct was offensive, intimidating and insulting. It caused physical and emotional harm and amounted to bullying and harassment and an abuse of his position of seniority and authority.’
Pisano denied all allegations against him. He said any contact with the student was accidental.
The tribunal found all allegations proved bar one, in which Pisano was alleged to have made an allegation against another solicitor.
Making submissions on sanction, Edwards described those subject to Pisano’s conduct as ‘at an early stage in their career’. Some ‘were doing placements [from] university’. He said: ‘The respondent’s conduct was such that many of these individuals understood this to be what the profession was and what they were expected to tolerate and there is evidence of that in their witness statements.’
Describing Pisano’s conduct as an ‘abuse of power’, Edwards said his behaviour was ‘deliberate and continued over a period of time’ involving ‘young members of staff who were vulnerable and taken advantage of’.
Pisano was struck off and ordered to pay £41,875.44 in costs.
A written judgment with reasons will follow.
