Lord Harley’s return to legal profession squashed by CILEx

Chartered legal executive regulator bans Alan Blacker for failing to disclose past misconduct

Struck-off solicitor Alan Blacker, better known to Legal Cheek readers as Lord Harley, has made an abortive bid to return to the legal profession as a chartered legal executive.

Blacker has instead been banned from CILEx membership for at least ten years after a disciplinary tribunal found that he had failed to disclose past misdeeds. A statement on the CILEx Regulation website says:

“In his application for CILEx membership in October 2020, Mr Blacker failed to disclose that he had been struck off the roll of solicitors in 2016, made bankrupt in 2018, convicted in 2019 of dishonestly making a false statement contrary to section 111A(1)(a) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 and removed from being a trustee or being concerned with the management of or control of a charity.”

The former solicitor first came to prominence after he was upbraided by a judge for appearing in court with colourful ribbons and badges on his gown.

Crown Court judge David Wynn Morgan told Blacker, who at the time went by the title Lord Harley of Counsel, “if you ever appear looking like something out of Harry Potter, you can forget coming before this court ever again”.

Blacker was struck off in 2016 among other things for making “inaccurate and misleading” statements about his academic qualifications and professional memberships.

A disciplinary tribunal has now found that he “misled or attempted to mislead CILEX and/or CILEx Regulation” by failing to come clean about his past.

Blacker has been approached for comment.