Paul Fraser Langley

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

Paul Fraser Langley, an experienced solicitor and partner at Plexus Law, admitted that between 10 and 30 September 2021 he signed six Statements of Truth in road traffic accident defences by appending a colleague's (Person A's) electronic signature without consent while Person A was on sick leave, and filed those defences at court. He admitted breaches of Principles 1, 2 and 5 and paragraph 1.4 of the Code of Conduct, but denied a breach of Principle 4 (dishonesty/integrity). The SRA applied to withdraw the Principle 4 allegation because it could not evidence the Respondent's state of mind and the first limb of the Ivey test was not made out; the Tribunal granted permission to withdraw it and made no finding of dishonesty. The Tribunal found culpability high but that strike-off was not warranted, approving the agreed 28-day suspension and ordering costs of £3,500.

Duties found breached:

• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues

Aggravating factors:

• Conduct occurred over a three-week period and concerned six defences
• Rectification only occurred after Person A returned and raised the issue, some weeks later
• Respondent minimised his conduct by describing it as 'taking a few short cuts'
• No reason why he could not have signed the defences himself
• Ought reasonably to have known his conduct was a material breach of obligations

Mitigating factors:

• Self-reported to the SRA
• Took immediate steps to rectify by informing the Firm, the Court and the opposing parties
• Court granted permission to amend the defences and did not report any matters to the SRA
• No loss or detriment suffered by clients or insureds