Tribunal’s decision now subject to High Court appeal
Legal Cheek can reveal Alan Blacker, aka Lord Harley, has appealed to the High Court against his striking off.
The controversial former ‘solicitor-advocate’ was booted out of the profession last year by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT), which agreed the regulator (the SRA) had proven seven out of eight disciplinary charges made against him.
Some of these charges concerned “inaccurate and misleading” statements Blacker had made about his academic qualifications and professional memberships.
It has now come to light he has appealed against the SDT’s decision to remove him from the roll. Screenshotted below is a line of new information which has been added into the striking off order.
The SRA has confirmed this to be the case, and issued us with this comment:
We will be involved as part of the proceedings, but cannot comment as the matter has yet to be heard. What is a matter of fact is that we made allegations of dishonesty at the hearing in July, and the Tribunal found these allegations proven to the criminal standard, beyond all reasonable doubt.
A hearing has been scheduled for 17 January. It is expected to last one day.
Earlier today, we reported that — despite being struck off — Blacker’s headline on LinkedIn is ‘Pro bono Senior counsel in civil and criminal proceedings with Grade A and Grade 4 accreditation. (Highest)’.
When the Legal Cheek team contacted the SRA about this, we were told the matter had been reported to the regulator and it is looking into it. Though the precise nature of the report cannot be disclosed, a spokesperson said:
We are aware of this particular issue and are gathering all the relevant information before deciding on next steps.
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