Paul Douglas Hills

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

Paul Douglas Hills, an associate solicitor and later salaried partner at Hatten Wyatt (Pengelly and Rylands branch), retained client monies on up to six occasions (Nov 2017-Apr 2018) without promptly paying them into client account, and on up to eight occasions retained oath fees for himself when administering probate-related oaths (Feb-Jun 2018). The Tribunal, dealing with the matter on the papers via an Agreed Outcome, found this was a serious case of dishonest conduct on multiple occasions with no exceptional circumstances, and ordered him struck off the Roll plus costs of £15,000.

Duties found breached:

• No baseless or threatened misconduct report
• No conflict between current clients
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank

Aggravating factors:

• Dishonesty as an aggravating feature
• Misconduct on multiple occasions

Mitigating factors:

• Medical evidence provided (though insufficient to amount to exceptional circumstances)
• Admissions made / cooperation via Agreed Outcome