The High Court has dismissed solicitor Edward McGarr’s applications to vary or withdraw statutory notices requiring documents connected with two complaints of alleged misconduct. The court said the notices sought Mr McGarr’s own documents concerning costs, not the files of the clients involved.
The complaints were made by solicitors Thomas Madden and Niall O’Reilly. Both concerned work the solicitors said they had done before Mr McGarr’s firm took over litigation cases that were later settled. They alleged that he had failed to account appropriately for costs. Mr O’Reilly also complained that an undertaking concerning his firm’s costs had not been honoured. The court did not decide whether either misconduct complaint was established.
The Law Society asked Mr McGarr to respond to the complaints, then issued notices under section 10 of the Solicitors (Amendment) Act 1994 seeking documents connected with each complaint. Mr McGarr applied under section 11 to have the notices varied or withdrawn. The Society sought dismissal of his applications and orders requiring production of the documents.
Mr McGarr argued, among other things, that the notices intruded on his clients’ privacy and property rights and that the Society should have provided information under an EU directive concerning criminal proceedings. The court rejected the directive argument, finding that the Society was conducting preliminary investigations and Mr McGarr was not suspected or accused of a criminal offence. It also found that the complaints concerned his conduct, rather than disputes between the complainants and their former clients.
The judge said the notices did not require the clients’ files. Documents that might fall within the notices included Mr McGarr’s bills of costs, claims for those costs, and records of payments or taxation. The court said the Society had been entitled to use its statutory powers after Mr McGarr failed to provide substantive responses in a form that could be shared with the complainants. It also rejected his objection that the notices’ 10-day compliance period curtailed his 21-day period to apply to court; the Society had not sought enforcement within that period.
The court dismissed the applications to vary or withdraw the notices. It said it would, if necessary, order Mr McGarr under section 11(4) to produce documents relating to the complaints to a person appointed by the Law Society. The judgment did not determine the underlying complaints or require production of either client’s file. It said questions about the Society’s power to require client files under European law, including GDPR, would have to be decided in an appropriate case.