Robert William Henry Arnison

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

Duties found breached:

• No conflict between current clients
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank

Aggravating factors:

• Respondent was a very experienced solicitor (admitted 1999) and a partner in his firm
• Misconduct involved a false representation to another party (lender's solicitor) including a confirmation that the legal charge had been correctly attested when it had not
• Conduct occurred in the context of a high value (£13.5 million) property transaction

Mitigating factors:

• Misconduct was momentary, unplanned and a single 'moment of madness'
• No personal benefit to the Respondent
• No harm caused, although there was a risk of harm
• Respondent self-reported almost immediately to the firm and the matter was reported to the SRA
• Medical evidence indicated his decision-making was likely impaired at the time
• Respondent was significantly overloaded with work (accepted by his employer)
• 23 years' practice with no prior regulatory or disciplinary history
• Full admission, complete insight and genuine remorse; practised without issue for over three years since the incident