FOUR former partners of collapsed firm Ross Harper were this week up before a Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal hearing that could ultimately see them struck off the solicitors roll.
The two-day hearing, brought by the Law Society of Scotland against Alan Miller, Joseph Mullen, James Price and Paul McHolland, took place in Perth on Monday and Tuesday.
The tribunal hearing relates to the 2012 collapse of Ross Harper, at one time one of the best-known firms in Scotland which counted the likes of former First Minister Donald Dewar among its alumni.
Ross Harper ceased trading after the Law Society, which had uncovered accounting irregularities during a routine inspection of the firm, applied to the Court of Session to have a judicial factor appointed. The role of a judicial factor is to gather and distribute property – client money in the case of Ross Harper - that belongs to somebody else.
When the judicial factor was appointed in April 2012 Law Society chief executive Lorna Jack said the body will seek to appoint a judicial factor “whenever we have concerns that client money is missing or, because the accounting records are so poor, we cannot tell if client funds are missing”.
A spokesman for the Law Society this week said the misconduct hearing at the tribunal is taking place after the society “carried out investigations following the judicial factor appointment”.
The tribunal’s most severe sanction is removal from the roll but it can also censure, fine, restrict practising certificates and suspend solicitors.
All Ross Harper’s partners were suspended from practise when the judicial factor was appointed. Mr McHolland is no longer suspended.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here