A senior associate solicitor who misled clients and colleagues for months about his own failure to meet a deadline has been struck off the roll.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard that William Dooley, admitted in 2015 and who worked for Dorset firm Ellis Jones Solicitors, was supposed to have asked for an extension of time for filing an appeal on behalf of clients involved in a dispute with a bank.
But after missing the deadline in August 2021, he then created and backdated correspondence which purported to be an extension application. He even deliberately misspelt an email address for the filing of the application – missing out a ‘p’ in appeals – so that it could look as it the correspondence had not been received.
He also created emails purporting to be to his clients and manually amended the recipients and times to appear as if he had emailed earlier.
The firm had asked for an update in March 2022 after his clients discovered there was no record of any appeal having been submitted. Dooley claimed that his secretary had been responsible for the typo in the email address.
The supervising partner initially accepted this explanation, but a later investigation by independent IT specialists found evidence of backdating.
Dooley then admitted he had been aware of the deadline but had not filed the appeal or an application for an extension of time, meaning the clients had lost their opportunity. He clarified that his secretary had in fact not been involved.
Dooley made an agreed outcome with the Solicitors Regulation Authority that he should be struck off.
In non-agreed mitigation, he explained that he had been experiencing significant pressures at home, balancing the demands of a new-born baby with a demanding professional role. These increased pressures and distractions had contributed to a loss of focus and judgement at the relevant time, although they were not used as an excuse.
Dooley was also ordered to pay £16,927 costs.
