(unnamed respondent)

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

Ryan Herrmann, an unadmitted person employed as an associate at Morgans Solicitors, applied to review a S.43 Order imposed by an SRA Adjudicator on 24 January 2024. The Adjudicator had found that he dishonestly held himself out as a solicitor and partner on a C100 court application form and in a draft court order. On review (applying SRA v Arslan), the Tribunal found the Adjudicator had erred: Herrmann had no realistic option but to sign the C100 as 'applicant's solicitor', and the Adjudicator over-stated his use of the word 'partner'. Crucially, the Adjudicator had mistakenly relied on an email of 3 August 2021 (relating to a different order) to conclude he had amended the 5 July 2021 order to refer to himself as a solicitor; the final order did not contain those references. This mistake amounted to a serious procedural irregularity. With the factual basis gone, the dishonesty finding could not stand. The Tribunal quashed the S.43 Order. Although costs do not automatically follow the event against the SRA (Baxendale-Walker), the Tribunal found the case had been brought on a flawed and misconceived basis amounting to good reason, and ordered the SRA to pay the applicant £5,000 costs (the SRA did not pursue its own claimed costs of £3,149).

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["review_dishonesty_finding_cue_present"]