Court lateness, false attendance note cost solicitor his career

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard that Alexander David Edmund Hayes Gallagher, a solicitor admitted in 2016 and working as a self-employed advocate for LPC Law, was scheduled to appear at Wandsworth County Court at 2:00pm.

Although the hearing started at 2:10pm and the defendant’s counsel had already addressed the court and left, Gallagher did not arrive until 2:40pm, seemingly convinced the hearing was set for 3:00pm.

Having heard from Gallagher on his own, the judge determined that issuing the originally intended order would be unfair and chose to adjourn the matter instead.

Despite having admitted his lateness, the following day, Gallagher submitted an attendance note to his instructing firm, falsely claiming that he had requested an adjournment due to missing instructions and that the defence counsel had raised issues with certain documents.

The firm grew suspicious of Gallagher’s conduct when its client reviewed the court order and compared it with his attendance note, which painted a very different picture of the hearing.

The official record revealed that Gallagher had not been present at the start, that the defence counsel had already left before he arrived, and that the adjournment had been the court’s decision – not the result of any request he had made.

VIEW ALL

When LPC Law confronted Gallagher in a recorded call on 24 August 2023, which he knew was being recorded, he admitted the true sequence of events.

During the call, he admitted that after arriving late to the hearing, he had “panicked” and “wasn’t sure what to do”, and instead of owning up, he had “dressed up his mistake” in the attendance note.

In a follow-up email, Gallagher was even more candid, admitting to the firm that he was “embarrassed” and that, despite being aware of the recital in the court order, he had “made up the attendance note, saying that I had requested an adjournment and that the court granted it”.

He acknowledged that the “deception is the worst part of it”, adding that “it was pretty artless of me, I do not know why I did it”.

Writing to the Solicitors Regulation Authority in December 2023, Gallagher confessed that the attendance note was “not entirely true” and claimed he had not meant to mislead anyone, while admitting it “might look like it”.

The tribunal emphasised that “ordinary and decent people” would consider it dishonest for a solicitor to “make up an account of what had transpired at a court hearing and then provide that account to a firm and its clients”.

While acknowledging that this was a single, brief incident in an otherwise clean career and that Gallagher was forthcoming when questioned about the misconduct, the tribunal ruled that his actions, and the falsehoods in his attendance note, were “deliberate” and demonstrated a clear “lack of integrity”.

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal also recognised that the firm had experienced “reputational damage with a longstanding client” as a result of his actions and “proven dishonesty”.

Given the gravity of the misconduct, the tribunal concluded that the only appropriate and proportionate sanction was removal from the roll, rejecting lesser penalties such as a reprimand or restrictions.

In addition to striking him off, the tribunal ordered Gallagher to pay £9,419 (equivalent to over $18,000) in costs.