United Kingdom: What Robinson v Solicitors Regulation Authority Tells Us about the Contested Terrain of Race and Disciplinary Processes

Abstract

There is a not so subtle racial undercurrent to the debate surrounding solicitor dishonesty, the disciplinary process, the role of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) in England and Wales. The discussion appeared to emerge from two different standpoints: the suggestion that solicitors from certain non- White backgrounds were more likely to be dishonest (racial stereotyping of dishonesty); and the suggestion that the Law Society and then the SRA (the solicitor regulator) were more likely to investigate, take action against and make findings against solicitors from non-White backgrounds (institutional racial discrimination). The debate then developed as a more sophisticated one attributable to factors beyond race, intersecting firm type, client type and case type alongside the ethnicity and/or nationality of the solicitor to posit a series of factors that may contribute to the reason why a disproportionate number of non- White solicitors face regulatory investigation and have findings made against them. Of the 390 solicitors brought before the SDT in 2011, 35% were from Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic backgrounds (BAME) against a population of 14% BAME solicitors who hold practising certificates. This short case note will consider this debate in the light of the case of Robinson v Solicitors Regulation Authority, in which the charge of discrimination was raised by the appellant solicitor as part of his challenge to the severity of the sanction imposed against him by the SDT.