A tribunal has condemned the six-year wait for resolution endured by a solicitor alleged to have overcharged a client.
Simon Tager was a partner at national firm Addleshaw Goddard when he inadvertently made irregular transfers of billed time between different client matters worth more than £1m. The affected client was overcharged by £472,000 which had to be reimbursed by the firm.
Tager, 44, was reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority in March 2019 and had to wait until February this year for a hearing at the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, where he was fined £8,500 following an agreed outcome with the regulator.
Greg Treverton-Jones KC, representing Tager, said there was argument that the delay in handling his case represented a punishment in itself, calling the SRA’s time to bring the prosecution ‘extraordinary, unacceptable and unfair’.
The tribunal said: ‘This matter had been hanging over the respondent far longer than it should have been, and the tribunal understood the added stress this had placed upon him and his family.’
Tager had described the irregular transfers as a misguided attempt at internal ‘housekeeping’. Working as a partner in the firm’s real estate department, he oversaw time transfers between separate clients, explaining later that he had intended to transfer time between fixed fee files and to write off hours which could not be billed for.
But in a handful of cases, he mistakenly requested transfers of time entries onto a file which was not a simple fixed fee file but one which was subject to regular fee review, with the unintended consequence that the transferred time led to a client being billed incorrectly.
Tager, who is now a consultant with another firm, admitted breaches of SRA principles and to acting recklessly.
He apologised for his conduct and said it was wholly out of character, isolated and had not been repeated since. At the time of the conduct he had been under significant pressure and he presented medical evidence showing what had in part caused his actions.
He had now made positive changes to his lifestyle and approach to work since leaving the firm, and by doing so had reduced the risk of relapse significantly.
The tribunal accepted that Tager’s conduct had been an ‘aberration’ brought about by his character traits and the pressure he placed himself under. There was no personal gain and no client had lost out.
The judgment added: ‘The character references from his friends, peers and clients demonstrated that [Tager] was extremely well thought of, not only for his professional capabilities, but as a person. It was likely that [he] had learned a hard but valuable lesson and that he had made lifestyle changes.’ He agreed to pay £25,000 costs.
