Paul Michael VOLL

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

Paul Michael Voll, a solicitor, was convicted in 2006/2014 of fraud for dishonestly diverting $77,000 of purchasers' trust monies into companies he controlled, and was sentenced to 2 years 6 months imprisonment (suspended after 3 months). The LSC brought a disciplinary application under s 420 LPA. The Tribunal found his conduct amounted to professional misconduct. Given the dishonesty, his prior disciplinary history (including a 2008 dishonesty finding where he was warned), the Tribunal found he was not a fit and proper person and ordered his name removed from the local Roll of Practitioners plus costs on a standard basis. Voll did not contest and agreed removal was appropriate.

Duties found breached:

• Proper basis for allegations
• No conflict between current clients
• Competence
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Prior disciplinary history including 2008 finding of professional misconduct involving dishonesty
• Previous public reprimand and $20,000 penalty in 2008
• Previous findings before Solicitors Complaints Tribunal (2007 trust account, 2014 failing to comply with statutory notices)
• Was expressly put on notice in 2008 that further breach would justify barring from practice
• Serious breach of trust warranting actual custody
• Total sum involved $77,000 across four transactions

Mitigating factors:

• Pleaded guilty to the criminal charge
• Did not contest the disciplinary application and agreed removal was appropriate
• Cooperated by accepting service and offering to expedite proceedings