The head of a family law team has been fined £1,500 after a tribunal found he ‘ought to have known’ that an application for a decree nisi had not been lodged with the court.
Daniel Jones, admittted in August 2011, was a partner and head of the family law team of the now-closed Salford-firm Berrymans Lace Mawer LLP, when he was instructed by Person A for what ‘should have been a straightforward divorce’.
Following a day and a half hearing, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found Jones had not misled his client into believing he had lodged an application for a decree nisi but ‘ought to have known’ that he had not done so. It found the allegation partly proved.
The SDT cleared Jones of acting recklessly or dishonestly.
Handing down summary reasons for the three-person panel’s finding that Jones did not mislead his client between December 2019 and April 2021 into believing that he had lodged an application for a decree nisi on her behalf in October or November 2019, but that he ought to have known that was not true, Usman Sheikh, chair of the panel said: ‘We say the respondent ought to have known he had not lodged the decree nisi but he, in fact, did not know that.
Read more
‘There was no dishonesty and no lack of integrity and no active misleading. [Jones] did breach principles 2 and 7 in that he failed to act in a way that upheld confidence in the solicitors’ profession and failed to act in the best interests of his client. He ought to have known the decree nisi had not been lodged. He should have looked into this matter further.’
The tribunal had previously heard that Jones told Person A he would apply for a decree nisi in either October or November 2019. The decree nisi was lodged a year later in November 2020.
Jones, who resigned from the firm in March 2021 and left the following month, was fined £1,500 and ordered to pay £15,000 costs.
