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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The tribunal said it was to Durkin’s credit that he ‘accepted responsibility for his conduct which had lacked integrity and was reckless’ adding that the ‘single instance of misconduct’ had caused ‘no actual loss to or impact on Client A, though the misconduct had placed a burden on Firm B and undoubtedly harmed the reputation of the legal profession’.
‘The tribunal noted the respondent’s claim as part of his mitigation that his admitted misconduct was the result of being stressed, overworked and dealing with personal issues,’ the judgment said.
The SDT suspended Durkin for 12 months to commence on 23 July 2025 and ordered him to pay £24,885 costs.
