Richard Thomas Thorburn

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

Richard Thomas Thorburn, struck off the Roll in November 2009 for professional misconduct (Accounts Rules breaches, failure to reply to the Law Society, failure to stamp/record/register deeds, and operating without professional indemnity insurance), applied under s10 of the Solicitors (Scotland) Act 1980 to be restored to the Roll. The Law Society objected. The Tribunal found he had not discharged the onus of showing he was now fit to be a solicitor, noting continuing lack of insight, recklessness, disregard for the Accounts Rules, and failure to undertake any training in the 10 years since practising. The Application was refused. The Law Society's motion for expenses was refused for lack of statutory basis. No express finding of dishonesty was made (the Tribunal noted the original tribunal found no suggestion of dishonesty with clients' money); conduct was characterised as reckless.

Duties found breached:

• Personal probity and fitness to practise
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Continuing lack of insight into his failures
• Reckless conduct in paying £320,000 without obtaining settlement documents, and this not being the first such occasion
• Complete disregard for the Accounts Rules
• Failure to undertake any training or educate himself on the Accounts Rules in the 10 years since practising
• Main thrust of submissions sought to re-argue culpability already decided in 2009

Mitigating factors:

• Two letters of support from solicitors attached to the Application
• Acceptance that the partnership was a disaster and should not have happened