An experienced solicitor who backdated a document and tried to mislead another firm has agreed to be struck off.
Martin Smith, a partner in the property department of London firm Simons Muirhead Burton, returned from his Christmas and new year break last year to be informed that he had failed to meet a key deadline. He then tried to cover up his mistake by backdating documents and passing them off as being made a few days before.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard that Smith had been instructed by two landlord clients to respond to a statutory notice which had been served by a tenant. The counternotice was supposed to be served on DKLM Solicitors by 4 January 2023.
Smith returned from two weeks’ leave a day later having failed to serve the counternotice. DKLM contacted him on 6 January stating that the deadline for the counternotice had passed with nothing received.
He emailed back with an attached copy of a letter and counternotice which he said he had been sent by first class post on 3 January. But the tribunal heard that both the letter and counternotice had been created on 6 January and backdated to appear as though they were done so three days earlier.
When DKLM questioned this account, Smith insisted in an email that he had posted the letter outside his office in time for the daily collection on 3 January and it was sent by first class post. As such, he tried to argue, it was deemed delivered the following day.
Smith later accepted that he had backdated the letter and counternotice and tried to pass them off as having been created earlier. He had sent the email to DKLM with the intention to mislead them about when the documents were created.
Smith, who was admitted as a solicitor in November 1986, offered no mitigation and made an agreed outcome with the SRA, which was presented to the tribunal.
The SDT said he had committed serious acts of dishonesty and continued this misconduct by trying to rely on these dishonest acts in correspondence with opposing solicitors.
He was struck off and ordered to pay £10,000 costs.
