Michael David Schwartz

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

The Respondent, a solicitor admitted in 1979, was found to have filed a witness statement dated 22 December 2016 at the SDT which he knew contained false/misleading information (claiming he wrongly believed practice restrictions did not take effect until publication), and to have deliberately and knowingly breached practice restrictions imposed on 9 September 2016 by appearing in court for Toussaint & Co Solicitors on 14 September 2016 without SRA approval. He admitted all allegations including dishonesty. The Tribunal expressly found dishonesty (per Ivey test) and assessed culpability as high. Dealt with on the papers by Agreed Outcome. Struck off the Roll and ordered to pay costs of £2,600.

Duties found breached:

• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank

Aggravating factors:

• Misconduct involved dishonesty
• Misconduct was repeated and continued over a period of time
• Involved attempted concealment of wrongdoing from the Tribunal and regulator
• Respondent was an experienced solicitor / criminal practitioner
• Fourth occasion the Respondent had been disciplined by the Tribunal
• Risk of harm to clients and significant harm to reputation of the profession

Mitigating factors:

• Respondent apologised and admitted the allegations
• Acted under great financial pressure during a stressful time
• Poor decisions made on the spur of the moment / panicked the day before the hearing