Michael William Freeman

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

Michael William Freeman, a solicitor employed at Proskauer Rose (UK) LLP, was found to have failed to inform his firm that he had not attended seminars or sat the Certificate of Proficiency in Insolvency (CPI) exam that the firm had paid for, repeatedly represented to senior colleagues that he had attended and passed the exam, and produced a professional biography containing false information stating he had passed the CPI exam. He admitted breaches of Principles 2 and 6 (and Outcome 8.1), with the Outcome 8.4 allegation dismissed as the biography was never published. The Tribunal found his conduct dishonest under the Ivey test across all three allegations. Rejecting submissions that workplace pressures amounted to exceptional circumstances (following James), the Tribunal struck him off the Roll and ordered costs of £9,423.

Duties found breached:

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

Aggravating factors:

• Dishonesty proven in relation to all allegations
• Conduct was deliberate, calculated and repeated over a period of time
• Repeated misrepresentations on at least five occasions to MF and PB, both orally and in writing
• Sought to conceal conduct with excuses about the certificate and the difficulty of the exam paper
• Breached the trust placed in him by his employer and irreparably damaged the employer/employee relationship

Mitigating factors:

• Offered to reimburse the Firm so it suffered no financial loss
• Voluntarily self-reported to the SRA
• Displayed genuine insight into his conduct
• Open and frank admissions made at an early stage
• Initial dishonest conduct was spontaneous
• Previously good character with positive references