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This looks like an extremely lenient punishment for a solicitor who received testamentary gifts from a number of clients without ensuring that they received fully independent legal advice. One of those gifts was a house which later sold for £478,000.

Arranging for the clients to receive "independent" advice from one's own employees was risible. Equally extraordinary is the SDT's suggestion (not reported in this article) that a doctor was an appropriate person to be providing "independent advice" to the testator.

To make matters worse, the solicitor settled claims made againt him by various charities on terms which precluded the charities from pursuing complaints to the SRA. Any experienced solicitor should know that such a clause is not acceptable. Again, that point is not mentioned in this article.