Brian Johnston
Allegation / charges
In the matter of Brian Johnston, a solicitor formerly practising as Brian Johnston & Co, Solicitors, 79 Park Street, Dundalk, Co Louth and in the matter of the Solicitors Acts 1954-2008 [6927/DT113/10; 6927/DT114/10; 6927/DT117/10 and High Court record no 2013/9 SA] Law Society of Ireland (applicant) Brian Johnston (respondent solicitor) On 31 July 2012, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found the respondent solicitor guilty of misconduct in his practice as a solicitor in that he: a) 6927/DT113/10 - failed to reply adequately or at all to correspondence from the Society and, in particular, letters dated 29 May 2009, 5 August 2009, 25 September 2009, 28 October 2009, 9 February 2010 and 2 March 2010, b) 6927/DT114/10 - failed to reply adequately or at all to correspondence from the Society and, in particular, letters dated 29 May 2009, 5 August 2009, 25 September 2009, 28 October 2009, 9 February 2010 and 2 March 2010, c) 6927/DT117/10 - failed to reply adequately or at all to correspondence from the Society and, in particular, letters dated 29 May 2009, 5 August 2009, 25 September 2009, 9 February 2010 and 2 March 2010. The tribunal ordered that the matters go forward to the High Court, and the President of the High Court, on 18 February 2013, made the following orders: 1) That the name of the respondent solicitor shall be struck from the Roll of Solicitors, 2) That the respondent solicitor do pay the Society the costs of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in each of the three applications, to be taxed in default of agreement, 3) That the Society do recover the costs of the High Court proceedings against the respondent solicitor, to be taxed in default of agreement.
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found Brian Johnston guilty of misconduct on three applications for failing to reply adequately or at all to correspondence from the Law Society over 2009-2010. The matters were referred to the High Court, and on 18 February 2013 the President ordered his name struck from the Roll of Solicitors and awarded the Society its costs of both the Tribunal and High Court proceedings, to be taxed in default of agreement. No express finding of dishonesty was made.
Duties found breached:
⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["extracted_from_register_summary"]
Duties engaged
Other decisions involving this respondent
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Documents
No documents recorded.
Source: https://www.lawsociety.ie/Public/disciplinarysearch/