A former partner with national firm Capsticks has been struck off after failing to tell his client he had missed a deadline.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard that Daniel Skinner, admitted in 1993, took no remedial action after opposition solicitors flagged up that points of dispute had not been filed in time.
Skinner’s client, a property owner defending a possession and disrepair claim, did not know for another 18 months that they were in receipt of a default costs certificate. The tribunal said Skinner adopted a ‘head in the sand’ approach to the matter at a time when his client needed to be made aware of the situation immediately to protect their position.
Skinner had been a partner at Capsticks specialising in leasehold litigation and disrepair work. He left the firm in late 2021 soon after his conduct was discovered.
He told the tribunal he faced an ‘intense and unsustainable workload’ handling more than 200 cases at a time. He described his job as being ‘firefighting’ to identify urgent tasks on the files and said the firm did not respond to his request for extra help.
Skinner claimed to be responding to 60 emails a day and he said he was aware that many messages were left routinely unread and unactioned every day.
But the tribunal found that as a partner and senior figure in the firm it was ‘withing his discretion to ensure effective delegation’ on the file, and that it was ‘unacceptable’ to blame a lack of sufficient time for his failure to serve the document and then notify the client.
The tribunal added: ‘[Skinner’s] primary motivation was avoiding owning the errors made on the file, and his secondary motivation was to minimise the time needed to deal with the file and to resolve the problems that had arisen from his omissions. Had [he] "grasped the nettle," he could have resolved the issues arising from the default costs certificate and reduced his overall work burden.’
It was found that the client was not provided with complete and accurate information about why the default costs certificate had come about or their liability to pay costs. It was only when opposing solicitors contacted Skinner’s client directly that they realised what was happening.
When the client raised the matter with Skinner, he replied without admitting the failure to serve the points of dispute on time and implying that the opposing solicitors were to blame.
Skinner was struck off and ordered to pay almost £31,000 costs.
In a statement following the ruling, the firm said: ‘Capsticks takes great pride in providing the highest level of care to our clients and our people. We are always disappointed when a colleague does not share or live up to the standards we hold and our clients expect.
‘When this issue first came to light, the firm took swift action including reporting to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. We constantly look to improve the processes that support our colleagues and clients whose work makes a difference to the lives of many thousands of people.’
Capsticks is the SRA’s legal adviser, so the prosecution was handled by another firm, Blake Morgan.
