The Solicitors Regulation Authority will have to pay almost £160,000 in costs after a ‘fundamentally misconceived’ prosecution of a veteran solicitor. Lawyers for Tina Theresa Shiebert said she had been caused ‘extreme stress’ and that her health had suffered after the SRA’s flawed action threatened to end her 39-year career.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found that it did not even have to hear Shiebert’s defence after ruling that the SRA’s case was so weak that proceedings should end immediately.

It is rare for defendants in the SDT, even if they are successful, to be awarded costs, but the tribunal departed from that starting point after finding the SRA’s allegation that Shiebert misled leasehold clients ‘lacked any proper foundation in law or fact’.

Its ruling added: ‘The present allegation was fundamentally misconceived and could not succeed on any reasonable interpretation of the evidence. While the tribunal accepted that the SRA was acting in the exercise of its regulatory function, it concluded that the decision to prosecute in these circumstances fell outside the bounds of what was reasonable.’

The case against Shiebert was dismissed and she was awarded £159,242 in costs.

The tribunal heard that Shiebert, admitted as a solicitor in 1986, had been a partner with Hertfordshire firm Dickins Shiebert when she was instructed by three clients in connection with the management of leasehold interests at a property comprising six flats.

The SRA alleged that she sent the leaseholders of one flat a letter that was misleading and intended to induce them to enter into a deed of variation under which rights over land would be forfeited. Shiebert maintained that the lease plan was defective and there was no intention on her part to mislead.

The SRA called just one witness to give oral evidence: the joint leaseholder of one of the flats. Shiebert’s counsel, Geoffrey Williams KC, pointed out that this evidence  ‘fatally undermined’ the SRA’s case and showed that the real issue was in the defective drafting of the lease.

The tribunal agreed that the solicitor was trying to explain the defect rather than conceal it, as shown by her advising the leaseholders to seek independent legal advice.

There was no evidence to support the essential ingredient of the allegation that the recipients of the letter had enforceable rights which they could be misled into forfeiting. The tribunal further found that the substance of the letter was to invite the leaseholders to engage in discussions regarding a possible variation, making the SRA’s case ‘fatally flawed from the outset and misconceived’.

 

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