A solicitor who held a Court of Protection deputyship for 16 years while taking little effective action to protect her client’s main asset has been suspended from practice for six months by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, on a statement of agreed facts and outcome. The tribunal’s judgments database records the case, 12838/2025, with an outcome of a fixed-period suspension on allegations that included lack of integrity and breaches of the SRA Principles and Codes of Conduct.
What did the solicitor admit?
Elizabeth Forrest, who qualified in 1995 and was at the relevant time a solicitor at Meikles Solicitors in County Durham, was appointed by the Court of Protection in 2006 as property and affairs deputy for a boy referred to as Client A, and she held the deputyship until 2022. She admitted failing to act in his best interests, and the tribunal said she accepted the appointment despite knowing that she did not have any relevant experience with which to exercise those functions responsibly.
The case centred on a house worth £130,000 left to Client A on his father’s death in 1997. Because he was too young to hold the property, it was registered in the names of the two administrators of his father’s estate. Shortly after her appointment Ms Forrest raised concerns with the Office of the Public Guardian that one administrator might not be acting in Client A’s best interests, and the OPG advised her to require that the house be put into Client A’s name and to consider putting the occupancy on a proper footing. She did neither. When she sought further advice in 2007 because the administrator was not responding, the OPG suggested she might instruct counsel, yet she did not do so until 2015, after a meeting with an OPG visitor. In the intervening years she did not reply to correspondence from the administrator’s solicitors, and an application to register a restriction against the property was refused.
What did the tribunal decide?
The tribunal agreed the proposed six-month suspension. It found that Ms Forrest had been inactive and was responsible for the failure to take appropriate steps on Client A’s behalf, that she had as a result jeopardised his interests, and that she had failed to uphold public trust and had not acted with the integrity, probity and trustworthiness expected of a solicitor. An allegation of dishonesty was withdrawn by the SRA. In mitigation, she had admitted her failures to the OPG and cooperated with the regulator, and the tribunal concluded that a fixed period of six months was proportionate and in the interests of justice, giving her time to reflect fully on her shortcomings so that they would never be repeated. She was also ordered to pay costs of £16,800.
What should firms with legacy deputyships do now?
A deputyship is the long-tail retainer with the least client pressure behind it. The client, by definition, cannot chase the file, and supervision by the Office of the Public Guardian is thinner than the complaint-driven scrutiny that keeps conveyancing and litigation files moving. This decision treats sixteen years of drift, against specific OPG advice sitting on the record, as misconduct meriting suspension rather than a rebuke, and it lands on the individual deputy personally rather than on a firm.
Firms holding legacy deputyships, particularly those inherited on a fee earner’s retirement or through a merger, should audit them against current OPG professional deputy standards before the file is picked up for them. Is the client’s property correctly registered, is any occupation on a proper footing, and has advice recommended years ago actually been implemented? The decision also extends a run of recent tribunal activity in this territory, following two conveyancing tribunals on where the manifest incompetence line sits and a conveyancer cleared of manifest incompetence but reprimanded on client care, and moves it into work where the client is among the most vulnerable a firm will ever act for.
Deputyship is a long-tail retainer with no client pressure to keep it moving, and the tribunal has now treated sixteen years of drift as misconduct meriting suspension rather than a rebuke. Firms holding legacy deputyships should audit them against current OPG standards before the file is picked up for them.
The full judgment in case 12838/2025 is published on the SDT judgments database.