A solicitor who committed two dishonest acts within weeks of joining a new law firm has been struck off after failing to convince a disciplinary tribunal that exceptional circumstances justified a lesser sanction.<\/p>\n
Michael Lillywhite, who was admitted in February 2012, was found by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal to have backdated a probate document so it appeared to have been completed two months earlier.<\/p>\n
He was also found to have misled a separate client after sending a draft will to an old address before assuring them he had checked the details and that everything was correct.<\/p>\n
The tribunal heard that Lillywhite joined Black Country-based law firm George Green LLP in January 2023.<\/p>\n
Shortly afterwards, he retained conduct of a probate matter in which probate had already been granted and a property sale completed.<\/p>\n
In that case, he emailed an executor a draft memorandum of appropriation with incomplete dating details. When the document was later sent to a beneficiary, it carried the date 13 December 2022.<\/p>\n
Lillywhite said he had not intended to mislead and claimed he was \u201cnot in a rational state of mind\u201d, acting in panic and haste.<\/p>\n
In the second matter, involving inaccurate assurances to a client, he said the message had been sent quickly in response to an enquiry.<\/p>\n
The tribunal accepted that Lillywhite had experienced significant mental health difficulties at the time and noted his previous good character.<\/p>\n
It also heard that the misconduct was out of character during an otherwise unblemished 14-year legal career, and that he had since returned to stable employment with three years of satisfactory practice.<\/p>\n
However, the panel concluded that the seriousness and repeated nature of the dishonesty outweighed the mitigation presented.<\/p>\n
The panel said: \u201cThe two dishonest acts occurred within a matter of weeks of each other and in different aspects of the [his] practice. Although the second act was less serious and of short duration, the fact that it followed so soon after the first demonstrated a pattern of conduct in which [he] chose to conceal the true position rather than act with the candour and transparency required of a solicitor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lillywhite was struck off the roll of solicitors and ordered to pay \u00a315,000 in costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A tribunal removed a Midlands lawyer after finding he backdated paperwork and misled a client<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":266702,"featured_media":2100078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120902],"coauthors":[127717],"class_list":["post-2110881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal","tag-black-country","tag-top-story"],"yoast_head":"\n