William Meechan

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

William Meechan, a partner at Campbell & Meechan, faced two conjoined complaints. He misled a client (Mrs McGlashan) into believing court proceedings had been raised and that her former partner had agreed to pay £25,000, when in fact he paid her funds himself to conceal his failures; he failed to communicate, failed to invoice before taking a £3,750 fee, and failed to respond to the SLCC and Law Society. He gave evidence at a fraud trial that he had signed an affidavit and, on later learning this was untrue, failed to correct it. A Financial Compliance inspection revealed numerous Accounts Rules breaches, including concealing a benefit-claiming client's true financial position. The Tribunal found professional misconduct on all matters except the alleged client-borrowing breach, found that elements of the misconduct disclosed dishonesty, and held a fine inadequate. The Respondent was struck off the Roll, found liable for expenses, with the compensation claim continued.

Duties found breached:

• Not mislead the court
• No improper communication with the court
• Complaints procedure and handling
• Advise on alternatives, settlement and outcome
• No conflict between current clients
• Handle inadvertently received material
• No improper use of client money
• Prompt accounting and return of money
• Accounting records, reconciliation and reports

Aggravating factors:

• Course of conduct over a long period involving many transactions and many different aspects of misconduct
• Elements of the misconduct disclosed dishonesty
• Previous finding of unsatisfactory conduct in analogous matters where he was ordered to retrain
• Previous finding of professional misconduct from the Tribunal (2006)
• Conduct suggested the Respondent was a danger to the public
• Conduct likely to seriously damage the reputation of the legal profession

Mitigating factors:

• Cooperated with the Tribunal proceedings to a large degree
• Expressed remorse and understood the seriousness of his conduct
• Had begun to wind down his practice in recognition of the likely outcome
• Two subsequent financial inspections raised no further issues of this kind
• Misconduct stemmed from a period when his practice fell apart following the Mr A matter