A partner in a City law firm who had a sexual encounter with a junior solicitor has overturned a £35,000 disciplinary fine after the high court criticised professional regulators for delving too far into his private life.
Ryan Beckwith, who was with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, was found guilty last year of breaching rules laid down by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA) on the grounds that his conduct affected the profession’s reputation. He was also ordered to pay £200,000 in costs.
On Friday Dame Victoria Sharp, president of the Queen’s bench division, and Mr Justice Swift in effect rebuked the legal regulators, redefining the narrow disciplinary line dividing professional performance from private behaviour.
“There can be no hard and fast rule [that SRA edicts can] never be directed to the regulated person’s private life, or that any/every aspect of [a solicitor’s] private life is liable to scrutiny,” the judges said.
Such rules, they added, should only apply when part of a person’s private life “realistically touches” on their practice of the profession or the standing of the profession.
“Any such conduct must be … demonstrably relevant [and] engage one or other of the standards of behaviour which are set out in or necessarily implicit from the [SRA] handbook,” the judges noted. “In this way, the required fair balance is properly struck between the right to respect … private life and the public interest in the regulation of the solicitor’s profession.
“Regulators will do well to recognise that it is all too easy to be dogmatic without knowing it; popular outcry is not proof that a particular set of events gives rise to any matter falling within a regulator’s remit.”
The two judges also overturned the original order for Beckwith to pay the SRA £200,000 towards its costs, describing the amount claimed by the regulator as “alarming”.
The incident itself took place in July 2016. The woman, an associate solicitor, was in the process of leaving the law firm and had been out drinking with friends one evening. Beckwith, who was married, joined them. Shortly after midnight he left in a taxi with the woman, who was in his legal team within the firm.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found that “both exited the taxi when it arrived at [her] home”. Beckwith told her he needed to use the toilet. She let him in. There was a “sexual encounter” between them in her bedroom. He left in the early hours of the morning.
The tribunal found that Beckwith was in a position of seniority and authority over the woman. It also concluded he knew she was “heavily intoxicated and that her judgment and decision-making ability was impaired”.
He was not found to have abused his position of authority, but instead by engaging in sexual activity he had acted “inappropriately”. That conduct was said to have breached his “obligation to act with integrity” and “to behave in a way that maintains the trust the public places in solicitors and in the provision of legal services”.
A spokesperson for the SRA said: “We will look at the high court’s judgment carefully before considering any next steps.”
