A solicitor has been struck off after he was found to have provided the Solicitors Regulation Authority with information he knew was misleading.
Shezhad Ilyas, admitted in 2012, faced three allegations at the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, including that when representing a client in litigation arising from a road traffic accident, he failed to adequately comply with three court orders which led to wasted costs orders being made against the firm and the claim being struck out; that in cross-examination during a hearing at Bradford County Court he provided answers which were misleading in that he omitted to disclose that his client was an employee at the firm and he and the client were co-directors of more than one company; and that he provided the SRA with inaccurate information in relation to his connection to the client.
Ilyas, who at the time of the misconduct was the owner of Bradford-based firm Goldmark Legal Services Limited, admitted manifest incompetence in relation to the court orders. He denied dishonesty or lack of integrity.
On the second day of the substantive hearing, the three-person panel found Ilyas admissions’ properly made in relation to the first allegation, including that his conduct was manifestly incompetent. It also found his conduct lacked integrity.
The SDT found the second allegation, in relation to Ilyas’ evidence in court, proved but did not find he lacked integrity or that he was dishonest.
Chair John Abramson said Ilyas’ omission that his client was also his employee or that they were co-directors of two companies was ‘inadvertent’, adding: ‘The respondent made a mistake in difficult circumstances based on him receiving bad news around the time of the hearing.’
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The third allegation, in relation to the SRA, was found proved including that the conduct was dishonest. The chair described Ilyas's answer to the SRA’s question over an email as ‘inaccurate and misleading’.
In a short summary of the tribunal’s decisions, the chair said: ‘The root cause of the mistakes was that the respondent handed the delegating of this matter to a paralegal with little or no experience of small claims. We find the respondent did not exercise adequate supervision of the paralegal nor gave adequate attention to the file, as a result, the claim was struck out when liability had already been admitted and costs incurred of £15,000.’
The chair said Ilyas ‘failed to adhere to the highest standards expected of a solicitor’.
The SDT previously heard that Ilyas had paid both wasted costs orders and the client had suffered no loss or harm.
In cross-examination, Ilyas told the tribunal at the time of the wasted costs orders, he was working seven days a week every two weeks. He said: ‘Ultimately, mistakes were made. Things should have been dealt with more efficiently…it was not intentional [nor] deliberate. I did supervise but I did not give it my full attention or full care…and ultimately that is why there have been so many slippages and so many mistakes.’
Striking Ilyas of the roll, the tribunal also ordered him to pay £28,000 costs.
