A law firm practice manager who took hundreds of thousands of pounds and copied the owner’s signature has been barred from working in the profession.
Patrick White, who was employed part time with Liverpool firm Parkerwall Limited from 2019 to 2023, forged the signature of Suzanne Wall on a loan agreement from 2021, according to a Solicitors Regulation Authority notice.
White also misappropriated £300,000 from a loan that was made to the firm and took £210,295 from issue fees and claimed from the firm’s disbursements funder for 110 claims when only two had been issued.
The firm has since closed and entered liquidation, owing more than £500,000.
The SRA notice said that non-solicitor White, whose last known address was in Widnes, worked as an employee and consultant, with his role involving the arrangement of after-the-event insurance policies for clients and sourcing new work.
The regulator said his conduct had been very serious, with a forensic investigation uncovering evidence of serious misappropriation of company and client funds and sustained and deliberate efforts to deceive others.
The notice added: ‘This has had a damning effect on the firm and its finances and is wholly unethical and unjustifiable behaviour for a member of the profession, particularly someone in a senior position. Mr White’s conduct is illustrative of a complete and wilful disregard for the obligations the firm owed to its clients, for his own regulatory obligations as an employee of a regulated firm, and for the rules governing the profession as a whole.’
White was made subject to a section 43 notice, preventing him from working for any regulated firm without SRA permission. He was also ordered to pay £600 costs. There was no mention in the SRA notice of any criminal proceedings.
Parkerwall Limited had been a relatively small operation, employing six people and running with net assets of £5,398 as at 31 October 2022.
A voluntary liquidator was appointed in February 2024. The most recent progress report published in April showed that unsecured creditors were owed £512,000 and that eight individuals had made claims totalling £62,000. No dividend is likely to be declared to any creditor.
