Former SSB Law chief to face misconduct charges

The former boss of collapsed Sheffield firm SSB Law is to face prosecution before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, the Solicitors Regulation Authority revealed today.

Jeremy Brooke, who was chief executive of the claims firm before it entered administration in 2024, has been referred to the tribunal following a prosecution by the SRA.

The regulator alleges that from mid-2022 to January 2024, Brooke failed to ensure that clients who went to the Court of Appeal were appraised of the adverse costs risks. It is then alleged that, over a 15-month period, Brooke encouraged or allowed the issue of cavity wall insulation claims with a value stated as being up to £10,000 when neither he nor the firm knew what the values were. The SRA alleges that therefore he ought to have been aware that an employee would have to sign a statement of truth that would be misleading.

The list of charges also includes an allegation that Brooke failed to report to the SRA that there were indicators of serious financial difficulty relating to the firm and that this presented significant ongoing prejudice to clients.

The allegations are subject to a hearing before the SDT and are unproven.

Brooke, admitted in 1998, has no current practising certificate and has been prevented since October 2024 from managing any law firm or carrying out activities linked to the provision of litigation.

SSB Law was incorporated in 2018 but increased its workload significantly in 2021 when it received thousands of claims from the collapsed firm Pure Legal. The SRA carried out a forensic investigation following reports of unpaid barristers’ fees but took no further action.

After going into administration, it emerged that former clients of SSB Law had been sent letters from defence lawyers demanding that they pay thousands of pounds in adverse costs.

Last November, the SSB Law Victims Support Group told parliament that after-the-event insurance purportedly taken out for cavity wall claims failed to protect consumers when the firm collapsed, exposing claimants to debts despite ‘no win, no fee’ assurances.

Former SSB Law directors Wesley Bower and Steven Westwood, neither a solicitor, have already been barred from working in the legal profession without SRA permission.

The SRA also placed interim conditions on the practising certificates of three solicitors who worked at SSB: Debra Allen, Lucy Helen Flynn and David Toyn. The regulator has now decided that no action should be taken against any of these three, so the conditions have been removed.

The SRA also said today that it hopes to complete its investigation into the conduct of Pure Legal 'soon'. The review will consider whether there was any breach of solicitors rules and if so, which individuals at the firm may have been culpable.

The SSB Law affair has prompted a wider examination of the claims sector, with the SRA carrying out ongoing work to assess the risks of high-volume firms and consider whether terms such as ‘no win, no fee’ should be banned.