George Stephenson

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

George Stephenson, a sole practitioner admitted in 1964, faced six allegations of conduct unbefitting a solicitor arising from an OSS inspection, including transferring costs from client account without delivering bills, breaching two professional undertakings, accepting third-party instructions from a struck-off solicitor, acting in a conflict of interest, and withdrawing client funds without instructions. The Tribunal found all six allegations substantiated but expressly accepted the Respondent had not acted dishonestly. Given a prior 1993 disciplinary matter and his repeated failures, the Tribunal suspended him from practice for an indefinite period and ordered costs of £6,148.89.

Duties found breached:

• No improper communication with the court
• No own-interest conflict
• No improper use of client money
• Diligence and timeliness

Aggravating factors:

• Previous disciplinary finding in 1993 for improperly withdrawing client monies and making false entries, resulting in fines totalling £6,000
• Accepted instructions from and disbursed funds on directions of a struck-off solicitor
• Repeated misdirection as to professional responsibilities
• Unacceptable explanations offered

Mitigating factors:

• Sums transferred represented proper charges for work actually done
• No dishonesty found; matters characterised as muddle and failure to attend to matters properly
• Long career as a solicitor
• Reimbursed £374 bank charges to client account