"Not one, not two but three solicitors... have been struck off"

""Not one, not two, but three solicitors retained by him in the course of the liquidation have been struck off,” she said." [Judge removes liquidator of Co Kildare hotel (The Irish Times, 25 July 2015)]

This relates to a single liquidation case in Kildare. This seems an extraordinary number. How many solicitors have been struck off since, say, 2009? Has the number been increasing? Are they "struck off" for good, or can they return after a while subject to various conditions? Is it always an expulsion, or can they be suspended from the profession?

The only case I remember of a solicitor being struck off before the current recession was Elio Malocco - and that was a very big deal at the time. Aside from Michael Lyng, Thomas Byrne and Ruairí Ó Ceallaigh, we hear very little about other solicitors who have been struck off, and why they have been.

Can anybody throw light on this issue, and any pattern which may be emerging?

Mr. Incognito

The list of censured solicitors is in every law gazette issue which is available online and in your local newsagent if you are curious.

Grolschevik

Also here:

http://www.lawsociety.ie/Public/disciplinarysearch/

seamus

Deleted User wrote: »

Can anybody throw light on this issue, and any pattern which may be emerging?

I think the pattern here is in relation to the hotel owner and how he selects his solicitors.

coylemj

No accounts submitted, excessive fees and a propensity to engage solicitors who get struck off. A very careless and accident-prone liquidator!

Looking here on the above Disciplinary website, it seems the Law Society has a busy schedule. Under "Inquiries", there are two investigations tomorrow, 28 July, one on 30 July and after the break on 29 Sept, 30 Sept, 1st, 6th, 7th, 8th, 15th, 20th and 28th October all pencilled in so far. How open are they to either other solicitors or the general public? Does any representative of the state attend them as a matter of practice, given that the Law Society is regulating the behaviour of the state's solicitors?

Without going through every previous Law Gazette, or keying in each of the 14,000 or so solicitors in the state into that search engine to see if they've been struck off, are there overall figures for the number of struck-off solicitors in the state in recent years? Is this number increasing or decreasing? Are solicitors paying more, or less, into the Law Society's Compensation Fund in 2015?(it went from €5.3m to €5.8m between 2010 and 2011)

Grolschevik

I think the annual reports of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal carry the sort of information you're asking about: http://www.distrib.ie/annual-reports/

The_Minister

Deleted User wrote: »

""Not one, not two, but three solicitors retained by him in the course of the liquidation have been struck off,” she said." [Judge removes liquidator of Co Kildare hotel (The Irish Times, 25 July 2015)]

This relates to a single liquidation case in Kildare. This seems an extraordinary number. How many solicitors have been struck off since, say, 2009? Has the number been increasing? Are they "struck off" for good, or can they return after a while subject to various conditions? Is it always an expulsion, or can they be suspended from the profession?

The only case I remember of a solicitor being struck off before the current recession was Elio Malocco - and that was a very big deal at the time. Aside from Michael Lyng, Thomas Byrne and Ruairí Ó Ceallaigh, we hear very little about other solicitors who have been struck off, and why they have been.

Can anybody throw light on this issue, and any pattern which may be emerging?

Loads are struck off every year - Malocco was a big deal because of the somewhat salacious facts involved, not just because he was struck off.