Solicitors

Care proceedings - solicitors for different parties cohabiting - fact of cohabitation giving rise to perception of bias - order that solicitors should not retain conduct of proceedings personallyRe L (Minors) (Care Proceedings: Cohabiting Solicitors): Fam D (Wilson J): 21 July 2000

The applicant was a party to care proceedings in which the solicitor with actual conduct of the proceedings on behalf of the local authority was cohabiting with the solicitor with conduct of the case within the firm representing two other parties to the proceedings.

The applicant was not on good terms with those two other parties.

When the applicant learnt that the two solicitors were cohabiting, she made an application that they should not both personally retain conduct of the proceedings on the ground that their relationship could give rise to a perception of bias.

Elizabeth Szwed (instructed by Celia Morris, Canterbury) for the applicant; John Critchley (instructed by Head of Legal Administration, Medway Council, Rochester) for the local authority and its solicitor; Nicholas Baker (instructed by Stephens & Son, Chatham) for the two other parties and their solicitor; Michael Sherwin, solicitor, (instructed by Stantons, Strood) for the children by their guardian ad litem.

Held, granting the application to the extent that after seven days from the date of the judgment there would be a declaration that Medway's Head of Legal Administration was no longer representing Medway in the proceedings, that the court had jurisdiction to make an order to remove solicitors from the record by declaring that they were no longer acting; that any exercise of that power eroded a litigant's right to choose his legal representatives and was to be justified by avoiding apparent unfairness and injustice; that the power of a local authority in care proceedings placed a premium on the importance that they should be seen to act impartially; and that intimate cohabitation was different in kind from professional association or social friendship and give rise to a reasonable lay apprehension of bias.