An experienced solicitor who kept client fees that were due to his firm has agreed to be struck off the roll.
Paul Douglas Hills, admitted in 1990, made the agreed outcome with the Solicitors Regulation Authority after admitting to retaining monies paid to him by clients on six occasions. He also prepared up to 16 applications for grants of probate, administered the oaths himself and kept oath fees for half the cases.
He accepted that his conduct, which lasted less than a year, was dishonest and that he should be struck off.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard that Hills joined Pengelly and Rylands in Kent in May 2017 and specialised in private client work. The firm reported him to the SRA after his dismissal in 2018: a client’s daughter had called to complain about typing errors on a lasting power of attorney and said her parent had paid Hills in cash.
The firm was not able to locate a client file which prompted a review of Hills’ work. Clients were identified where Hills had received payments directly and had not accounted to the firm for the monies. It was not known how many times he had done similar as he had not always opened a file on the firm’s system.
Cheques found to have been paid to Hills on three of the six admitted occasions ranged from £164 to £660. The remaining clients paid him in cash, from £50 to £1,180. In total the amount not paid into the client account was estimated at £3,147.
On the eight occasions when Hills administered oaths, client ledgers showed that fees of £7 or £14 were taken by him from the firm’s petty cash. The firm had to arrange for applications for grants of probate to be redrafted and resworn. It also successfully pursued Hills through civil proceedings for the retained monies.
Hills put forward in mitigation, not agreed by the SRA, that he had been struggling with stress, anxiety and depression for some time and he feared disclosing this to the firm as mental illness might be regarded as a sign of weakness.
He had intended to pay the monies back and failed to do so through error, oversight, disorganisation and health issues. He asked for clients to make cheques out to him as some of them struggled with spelling the firm’s name, he submitted.
The SDT said these were ‘serious acts of dishonesty’ involving several clients, the majority of whom were elderly and vulnerable.
Hills was struck off and agreed to pay £15,000 costs.
