Andrew Paul Rose

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

Andrew Paul Rose, a senior associate solicitor, filed a claim form for Client A's dental negligence claim stating a value limited to £5,000 (requiring a £205 fee) when he knew the true claim value was significantly higher (potentially over £500,000, requiring a £10,000 fee), because the client had not provided funds and he believed the Firm could not pay. Some six months later, panicking that the service deadline had arrived, he amended the claim form himself to show a higher value and a £10,000 court fee (without going through CPR processes or paying the fee) and served the falsified document on the Defendant. The matters came to light when he left the Firm; the client's claim was ultimately struck out for invalid service. The Tribunal found both allegations proved including express findings of dishonesty under Ivey, lack of integrity, and breaches of Principles 1, 2, 4 and 6 (and Outcomes 5.1/5.6 for Allegation 1.1 only). Finding no exceptional circumstances under Sharma/James, the Tribunal struck him off the Roll and ordered £15,000 costs.

Duties found breached:

• Act in the client's best interests
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank

Aggravating factors:

• Dishonesty
• Deliberate conduct on two occasions, several months apart
• Second act of falsification intended to conceal the earlier inaccurate claim form
• Knew he was in material breach of his obligations
• Highly experienced solicitor (qualified 2001)
• Client's claim ultimately struck out causing harm

Mitigating factors:

• Paid costs of counsel and court fee for unsuccessful strike-out defence
• Misconduct on a single file in an otherwise unblemished career
• Occurred during period of personal difficulty (parents' ill health, death of mother)
• Genuine insight and contrition
• Full and frank admissions at an early stage and cooperation with the SRA
• No personal benefit
• No previous disciplinary findings