A managing partner has been suspended from practice for a year after he admitted backdating a client care letter. Jonathan Peter Durkin, admitted in 2012, was the managing partner of Prosperity Law’s Liverpool office when he created a client care letter with appended terms on business in 2023 but backdated to make it appear as though it was created and/or sent in 2020.
Durkin admitted the allegation and that he had breached the Code of Conduct. He also accepted his conduct was reckless.
In a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal judgment on an agreed outcome, the SDT said it ‘initially reacted the proposed agreed outcome, expressing difficulty in understanding how the backdating of a document could be anything other than dishonest’ but it was ‘persuaded, on balance, that it would not be proportionate to insist on a substantive hearing to determine this discrete issue when the parties accepted that the misconduct had been serious in nature and degree’.
The SDT said it noted a negligence claim had been brought by the client ‘despite no direct financial loss being reported’ and invited the regulator and Durkin to ‘negotiate a “substantial” period of suspension’. It added: ‘The respondent and the applicant reached agreement upon a 12-month suspension, representing a significant increase from the initial three-month proposal. The tribunal found this revised period of suspension acceptable.’
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