David William McDermott

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

The Respondent, a solicitor and firm director dealing with personal injury work, admitted that between 2015 and 2020 he made statements on three client matters (CF, PA, AG) apt to lead clients to believe their failed personal injury claims had succeeded, when he knew they had failed due to the firm's negligence. He admitted Allegation 1.1 in full, including dishonesty, and accepted there were no exceptional circumstances. Allegation 1.2 (paying money to clients without proper valuation) was dismissed on a no-case-to-answer submission because it was impermissibly and ambiguously pleaded (the concept of conflict of interest was introduced only in the Reply, not the Rule 12 Statement). The Tribunal found dishonesty and struck him off the Roll, ordering costs of £5,715.

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• No conflict between current clients
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Dishonesty in misleading clients to conceal the firm's negligence
• Conduct concealed the firm's negligence over an extended period (2015-2020)
• Breach of the fundamental bond of trust between solicitor and client

Mitigating factors:

• Self-reported to the SRA
• Full admissions and complete insight
• Apologised to Tribunal, profession and clients
• No previous disciplinary findings
• No client suffered financial loss; clients paid at higher end of applicable bands
• Used his own funds to pay one client
• Long, otherwise unblemished career