Restoration application refused 10 years after strike-off

A former solicitor who was struck off the roll more than a decade ago has had her application for restoration refused. 

Antoinette Olivia Taylor, admitted in 1991, was sanctioned by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in 2012 after admitting charges including making improper withdrawals from client accounts, failing to remedy breaches of the Solicitors Accounts Rules, acting in a share sale transaction without paying proper heed to the professional guidance and making an untrue statement in an application for professional indemnity insurance.

She was struck off the roll and ordered to pay £28,000 in costs. Taylor had also appeared before the tribunal in August 2011 when she was fined for acting for a client when his interest conflicted with her own and failing to act with integrity. 

Taylor, who is currently working as a company secretary and director, applied to be restored to the roll at a hearing earlier this year.

In its judgment, the tribunal said Taylor had undertaken training on anti-money laundering but ‘did not describe it as a priority’ and had also undertaken training in copyright matters as well as landlord and tenant law. 

The tribunal said it was ‘concerned’ about Taylor’s rehabilitation and after 10 years ‘out of the profession…40 hours of continuing professional development was not sufficient’.

It added: ‘Ms Taylor had undertaken a large number of short courses but had focused on quantity rather than quality. The areas of anti-money laundering, the Solicitors Accounts Rules, the 2019 Code of Conduct all had to be addressed, having regard to the large number of breaches that had occurred, and it was unclear what she had learnt from the courses she had attended.

‘The tribunal saw no evidence that the attitudinal failings and lack of insight had been addressed by the courses she had attended.’

The judgment also highlighted that the tribunal was ‘troubled’ by Taylor not paying the remaining £2,700 from a fine imposed in 2011, even after she had been made aware of the outstanding amount in November 2022.

The SDT found there was ‘no evidence’ as to Taylor’s conduct ‘in the future, no evidence or a training plan or supervisory arrangements specific to her and no evidence she had earned the confidence of a firm of solicitors’.

It said: ‘In those circumstances, her assurances that she had no intention of undertaking conveyancing work were not persuasive as that appeared no more than an aspiration as opposed to a guarantee.’

‘The tribunal was also concerned, having heard Ms Taylor’s evidence, that her reasons for wanting to come back into the profession were unclear. Ms Taylor’s evidence appeared to suggest that the reasons related to how she would feel about it, rather than a genuine capability or desire to help members of the public.’

Refusing Taylor’s application to be restored to the roll, the tribunal said it ‘would not be the appropriate way forward’.

Taylor was also ordered to pay costs of £3,346.30.