Zaheer Ahmad

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

Zaheer Ahmad, a barrister, was found to have committed professional misconduct under CD5 and rC8 by failing to comply with a Wandsworth County Court order of 22 October 2015 requiring him to pay £54,595.39 plus £9,416.50 costs to a former salaried partner, Mr H. He prolonged proceedings through unsuccessful appeals and made no payments until May 2023, paying around £42,500 plus a further £5,000. The Tribunal found the misconduct in the middle-to-upper range of seriousness but no express finding of dishonesty was made. It imposed a 6-month suspension concurrent on both charges and ordered £2,496 costs to the BSB.

Duties found breached:

• Act only on proper, lawful instructions
• Uphold public trust in the profession

Aggravating factors:

• Misconduct was intentional and sustained over a number of years
• Respondent had sole responsibility for the circumstances giving rise to the misconduct
• Failure to admit that non-compliance amounted to professional misconduct
• Lack of insight into the impact on the judgment creditor
• Significant amount of the judgment debt (over £50,000)
• Prolonged failure deliberately to delay proceedings in hope debt would become unenforceable
• Lack of remorse
• Concerns about reliability of financial evidence and prioritising other expenditure over the debt
• Experienced professional (barrister, solicitor and judge in Pakistan)
• Previous disciplinary finding (2014 reprimand) preventing presentation of impeccable record

Mitigating factors:

• Paid £42,500 towards the debt by January 2024 and a further £5,000 since
• Cooperated with the BSB investigation (though not entirely open)
• Stated intention to pay debt in full by instalments
• Personal circumstances - married with four children, prior ill health (kidney donation in 2019), family matters overseas