David Johnson

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

David Johnson, principal/director of Johnson Family & Property Law Ltd, faced two averments of misconduct. The first concerned a conflict of interest arising when, as supervising solicitor of an experienced trainee, his firm acted for both Mr S and Mrs S in preparing and executing a deed (evacuation of a survivorship clause) on 25 February 2020 where their interests conflicted. The Tribunal found the Respondent NOT guilty of professional misconduct on this point, holding the failure was not a serious and reprehensible departure given the urgency and context, and remitted it to the Law Society under s.53ZA as possible unsatisfactory professional conduct. The second averment concerned failure to timeously implement a mandate signed by Mrs S; the items were not delivered until 20 July 2020, a roughly two-month delay. The Tribunal found this constituted professional misconduct. There was expressly no question of dishonesty or lack of integrity. The Respondent was censured and found liable in expenses.

Duties found breached:

• Diligence and timeliness

Mitigating factors:

• Senior solicitor of good character, in practice since 1993
• Misconduct at lower end of scale and an isolated incident
• Respondent showed insight and cooperated with the Complainers and Tribunal
• Delay period shorter than typically seen in misconduct cases
• Secondary Complainer made no claim for compensation
• Case had drifted for many months with the Law Society