Rizwana Jamil

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

Rizwana Jamil, a sole practitioner and COLP/COFA of RJ Solicitors, was found to have failed to progress a client's immigration application over several years, provided false and misleading information to the client, failed to co-operate with the SRA, provided false information to the SRA during its investigation, provided false information on two PII proposal forms, and committed extensive breaches of the Solicitors Accounts Rules including failure to reconcile accounts, failure to obtain accountant's reports since 2014, and making 207 unsupported transfers totalling £134,393.40. The Tribunal made express findings of dishonesty in respect of allegations 1.2, 1.4, 1.5 and 1.6.4 (including deliberately avoiding accountant's reports to prevent forensic scrutiny), as well as recklessness and manifest incompetence. She was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay agreed costs of £25,000.

Duties found breached:

• Integrity
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Act in the client's best interests
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank
• No conflict between current clients
• Prompt accounting and return of money
• Firm governance, systems and compliance
• Cooperate openly with regulators

Aggravating factors:

• Dishonesty found in respect of four allegations
• Recklessness in respect of accounts breaches
• Manifest incompetence across multiple allegations
• Misconduct spanning 2015 to 2020 over a protracted period
• Experienced solicitor and sole practitioner holding COLP/COFA roles
• Provided false information to regulator during investigation
• Deliberately avoided obtaining accountant's reports to avoid scrutiny
• Accounting discrepancies of over £4,000,000 and 207 unsupported transfers totalling £134,393.40

Mitigating factors:

• Closed the Firm
• Co-operated and engaged fully with Tribunal proceedings
• Made fulsome admissions in advance of substantive hearing
• No previous disciplinary matters
• Appeared before Tribunal to explain conduct despite likely outcome