John Warner Smith & Alick Arlington Voliere

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

In case 10273-2009 the SDT found the First Respondent (John Warner Smith) lacked integrity and lent his name to a sham partnership (Sovereign Chambers LLP), but expressly found he was NOT dishonest; the Second Respondent (Alick Arlington Voliere), who set up the sham partnership on the day he was admitted, practised while barred by his student immigration status, breached undertakings, misled a lender and the SRA, was expressly found to have acted dishonestly under the Twinsectra test. Both were struck off the Roll. In this case the First Respondent was ordered to pay £5,000 costs and the Second Respondent £9,000 costs (total £14,000).

Duties found breached:

• Full disclosure on ex parte applications
• No improper communication with the court
• Honesty
• Integrity
• Disclose material information to client
• No conflict between current clients
• Handle inadvertently received material
• No improper use of client money
• Competence
• Honour professional undertakings
• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues
• No improper fee-sharing or partnership
• Not misrepresent regulated status

Aggravating factors:

• Second Respondent set up a sham partnership on the day he was admitted, exploiting a vulnerable fellow solicitor
• Second Respondent practised while not permitted due to immigration status
• Public exposed to great loss and profession to great damage
• Second Respondent's catalogue of default across multiple matters
• Second Respondent concealed a back-to-back transaction and true purchase price from lender

Mitigating factors:

• First Respondent had an unblemished record over almost 44 years in practice
• First Respondent suffered serious ill health (stroke, brain haemorrhage, prostate cancer, eye problems) that clouded his judgment and made him vulnerable
• First Respondent was found not to be dishonest; his fault was by omission rather than commission
• First Respondent admitted some allegations
• First Respondent was exploited/taken advantage of by the Second Respondent