William Meechan

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

William Meechan, a partner at Campbell & Meechan, Glasgow, faced two conjoined complaints. In the McGlashan matter he misled his client into believing court proceedings had been raised and that her former partner had agreed a £25,000 settlement, when no action was raised and the money came from himself; he took £3,750 in fees without an invoice, and failed to respond to the SLCC and Law Society. In a criminal fraud trial he gave evidence that he had signed an affidavit as notary (with the client absent); the Tribunal accepted he believed this true when giving evidence, but he failed to correct it after learning it was false. A Financial Compliance inspection revealed numerous Accounts Rules breaches, conflicts of interest in back-to-back transactions, due diligence failures, and concealment of a benefits-claiming widow's true financial position via retained executry funds and a brokered loan. The Respondent expressly accepted his concealment amounted to dishonesty, and the Tribunal found elements of the misconduct disclosed dishonesty. The Tribunal declined to find one alleged breach (borrowing from a client) established, but found professional misconduct on all other matters and ordered that his name be struck from the Roll, with expenses and publicity; compensation to the Secondary Complainer was continued.

Duties found breached:

• No improper communication with the court
• Cease acting on client perjury or disobedience
• 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 a large number of transactions and many different aspects of misconduct
• Elements of the misconduct disclosed dishonesty
• Previous finding of unsatisfactory professional conduct in analogous matters (May 2011) with a direction to re-train
• Previous finding of professional misconduct before the Tribunal (October 2006)
• Conduct suggested the Respondent was a danger to the public and likely to seriously damage the reputation of the legal profession
• Outstanding financial compliance issues from a March 2015 inspection remaining unresolved

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 had raised no issues of this kind
• Willingness to pay compensation to the Secondary Complainer