Decision record
Mark Saunders
Allegation / charges
Breaches
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
The Respondent, a partner at a criminal defence firm responsible for legal aid billing, knowingly prepared and signed costs claim forms (LF1/AF1) bearing incorrect (backdated) dates and sent correspondence with untrue explanations to the Legal Services Commission/Legal Aid Agency to support claims submitted outside the three-month contractual billing period. This occurred on five occasions between November 2011 and January 2015 across 15 files (19 claims totalling £19,840.30). He admitted the allegations and admitted dishonesty (Twinsectra/Bultitude test). The Tribunal found the allegations and dishonesty proved. Despite strong mitigation and testimonials, the Tribunal found no exceptional circumstances to depart from the normal sanction for dishonesty and ordered the Respondent struck off, with costs of £7,342.30.
Duties found breached:
Aggravating factors:
- Dishonesty involved
- Deliberate rather than accidental conduct on each of five occasions - created misleading documents and letters
- Misconduct continued over a period of about three years two months (November 2011 to January 2015)
- Misconduct was concealed throughout that period
- Persistence in pursuing payment which compounded the initial deception of the LAA
- Knew conduct was in material breach of obligation to protect the reputation of the profession
Mitigating factors:
- Made good the financial loss (repaid the Firm which repaid the LAA)
- Voluntarily notified the SRA and provided full information (Spreadsheet)
- Genuine insight into misconduct
- Early open and frank admissions and high degree of co-operation with SRA and LAA
- No previous disciplinary history
- Minimal direct impact on public/public funds
- Background factor of Mr DC's deception weakening the Firm's finances
- Impressive testimonials from judiciary and legal profession