A barrister who tried to claim double the £500 fee he had agreed with his solicitor by providing the court with a fake fee note has been disbarred.
A Bar disciplinary tribunal said Julian Boyd Orr, called in 1995, was lying in a witness statement when he blamed the pandemic and his chambers for the misconduct.
The tribunal said that “for this level of dishonesty, done for financial gain (however modest), and persisted in for about nine months, there is only one appropriate punishment”.
Mr Orr was instructed to represent a claimant in a consumer credit action brought against a bank, alleging the mis-selling of solar panels.
A case management conference (CMC) was held on 20 July 2020, ahead of which Mr Orr generated two fee notes, each for £500 plus VAT. One was for the CMC, the other – which was not the subject of the disciplinary action – for an application that was to be made.
“The fee notes were unusual in that they were not issued on chambers’ behalf or on chambers’ paper. Instead, they were issued by a consultancy company that Mr Orr controlled called ‘Leewood Consulting Limited’.
“It appears that his chambers were unaware of the existence of these fee notes, and we do not know why they assumed the form that they did.”
The case settled shortly afterwards and the defendants were ordered to pay the claimant’s costs. The claimant’s solicitors “forwarded vouchers” in support of those costs in November 2020, including a Leewood fee note for Mr Orr’s appearance at the CMC.
“Now, the amount claimed was no longer £500 but £1,000. This, on the admission of Mr Orr, was a false fee note. It was issued by him on 4 October 2020 for no valid reason that we can discern, nor have we been given any by Mr Orr.”
The tribunal said it was “sure” that this was “in fact a dishonest attempt by him to gain an excess payment from the defendant in the action of £500 to which he was not entitled”.
The false fee note was “robustly and rightly challenged” by the defendants’ solicitors, Eversheds Sutherland.
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Barrister who tried to double £500 fee with fake invoice disbarred
