Michael Thomas McSherry

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

The Scottish Solicitors' Discipline Tribunal found Michael Thomas McSherry guilty of professional misconduct on ten issues arising from his sole practice at SBM Law in 2014. He misrepresented to client Mr D that £200,000 would be held pending a share purchase while instead transferring it to another client (Company 1/Mr C) without written authority, kept improper and incomplete client ledgers, created a de facto client account deficit, and failed to carry out anti-money laundering checks or investigate the source of funds. He also dishonestly told estate agents and TLT Solicitors that he held £2,050,000 in his client account when he did not. The Tribunal expressly found his misrepresentations met both the objective and subjective tests of dishonesty. Given the seriousness, a prior analogous misconduct finding, and lack of remorse and insight, the Tribunal ordered that he be struck off the Roll of Solicitors and found him liable for the Complainers' and Tribunal's expenses (to be taxed).

Duties found breached:

• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• No improper use of client money
• Accounting records, reconciliation and reports
• AML and crime-prevention compliance

Aggravating factors:

• Previous finding of misconduct against the Respondent for analogous matters on 21 January 2016
• Lack of remorse and insight
• Failure to engage adequately with the Tribunal process
• Conduct at the higher end of the scale of misconduct with potential for very serious consequences

Mitigating factors:

• No evidence the Respondent received any personal financial gain
• Personal circumstances in 2014 (his son was unwell)
• Limited knowledge of conveyancing and reliance on others