After yet another galling sexual misconduct episode to blight the profession, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has come out swinging after accusations it was slow to act.
In October 2021, former Eversheds Sutherland trainee Thomas Hagyard was jailed for eight years after being convicted of two counts of assault by penetration, and two counts of sexual assault. Hagyard had joined Eversheds only a month prior.
According to a Daily Mail report of the court proceedings, at a flat party in Fulham, a female law student took herself to bed after drinking heavily. She was reportedly ‘sound asleep’ when Hagyard ‘began to touch her sexually’.
Isleworth Crown Court then heard that Hagyard had groped a second woman at the same party. BlackFriars Chambers’ Richard Job for the prosecution said the woman ‘was woken at 5.30am by someone touching her chest’. Job continued: ‘He was crouched by her and having touched her breast he moved his hand to her belt and began to undo the buckle. She was scared and she got up and went quickly to the host’s bedroom.’
Eversheds said: ‘Eversheds Sutherland (International) can confirm that Tom Hagyard joined the firm in September 2017 as a trainee solicitor. He was suspended immediately following his arrest, and did not resume his position before leaving the firm in June 2018.’
Fast-forward to October this year and news broke that the SRA had struck off Hagyard via a section 43 order following his conviction, and ordered him to pay the regulator’s £600 costs. But rather than applauding the SRA for dishing out justice, the news was met with disdain in RollOnFriday’s comments section, which framed the process as being overly drawn-out.
One user wrote: ‘Efficiency in motion. All you need is a hefty prison sentence and it takes the SRA just a year to strike you off.’ Another quipped: ‘They move lightning quick on the important stuff, like when a junior loses a briefcase or misfiles something.’
Legal Business put this criticism to the SRA, with a spokesperson robustly responding: ‘The process was conducted as fast as feasibly possible.’ The SRA added that due process must be respected in all cases, and, as such Hagyard was allowed the full extent of time to respond to the regulator.
Andrew Pavlovic, partner at CM Murray and specialist in SRA professional discipline, agrees that the process was above board: ‘In the Eversheds case it looked at risk to the profession, and if someone is in prison they don’t really represent a risk and are not endangering the profession or the public in any way. In that case there was a criminal prosecution, and it’s normal for it to let criminal prosecutions play out. It has had a year following the conviction to make the section 43 order, and in the grand scheme of SRA timings it’s not that long.’
This is exacerbated by the usual complaints around lack of resources at the SRA, but Pavlovic argues the regulator does not help itself by chasing a variety of targets: ‘The SRA has a number of issues all going on at the same time. Sexual harassment, SLAPPs, AML, it is quite thinly spread.’
‘Whether or not you think the guidance is perfect, it’s changing culture.’
Andrew Pavlovic, CM Murray
One month before Hagyard’s strike-off, the SRA published its much-anticipated sexual misconduct guidance. It sparked debate during the consultation phase for its proposed focus on solicitors’ behaviour both in and outside the office. In June, legal ethics expert and Kingsley Napley partner Iain Miller, said: ‘Where does professional life stop and private life start? I don’t think that being rude to someone in a social context is a breach. There has to be some sort of continuity between the action and how you behave in a professional environment.’
The new guidance was born out of the Ryan Beckwith affair, where in November 2020 the High Court overturned the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal’s (SDT) decision against the ex-Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer partner. The Queen’s Bench Division’s judgment reversed the SDT’s October 2019 findings that Beckwith’s drunken sexual activity with an intoxicated associate breached Principles 2 and 6 of the SRA’s code of conduct, reversed his £35,000 fine and quashed the £200,000 costs order.
Announcing the new guidance, SRA chief executive Paul Philip said: ‘Importantly, as we said in 2020, the Beckwith judgment made it clear that it was “common sense” that upholding our principles of acting with integrity could reach into a solicitor’s private life. So alongside, we are also publishing updated guidance on acting with integrity.’
It is hard to dispute the necessity of the new guidance when considering the SRA’s caseload. Alongside the September announcement, the SRA produced compelling statistics: since 2018 it has received 251 reports of alleged sexual misconduct, compared to just 30 in the preceding five years. As of September 2022, the SRA had 117 open investigations into sexual misconduct cases.
The SRA said that a ‘recurring issue’ in the cases is the extent to which ‘a solicitor’s regulatory obligations apply to both their professional and private lives.’
Pavlovic maintains that in its current guise the SRA is one of the more interventionist regulators, before offering his own assessment: ‘Generally I think the guidance is fair, but there are a couple of areas where it becomes more difficult. In cases relating to criminal allegations, the SRA has said it might pursue a case even when someone has been acquitted, or if the police has decided to take no further action. You could argue that goes beyond its jurisdiction, and it’s particularly concerning given that since 2019 the SRA applies the civil standard of proof.’
But ultimately Pavlovic argues that the increase in complaints suggests that the SRA’s hard line is having an impact. He says: ‘Whether or not you think the guidance is perfect, it’s changing culture.’
‘Where does professional life stop and private life start? I don’t think that being rude to someone in a social context is a breach.’
Iain Miller, Kingsley Napley
The Hagyard matter caps off a year of high-profile regulatory scrutiny of the profession. In January, Mishcon de Reya received the highest-ever financial penalty issued by the SRA of £232,500 for a string of failures related to money laundering rules. In March, former Mishcon partner Michael Nouril was handed a separate £17,500 penalty for his role in the misconduct.
Nouril admitted to serious breaches of money laundering regulations relating to work for two individual clients, and corporate vehicles connected with the same two individual clients.
In February, the SRA closed its investigation and exonerated former Freshfields partner Caroline Stroud relating to her handling of an internal inquiry into a rape allegation at UBS.