Andrew Nulty, the lawyer who boasted of his £13m fortune, has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for his part in the miners’ compensation scandal.
Nulty, who launched Avalon Solicitors in 2001 with 2,000 personal injury claims on his books, is the third lawyer to be kicked out of the profession for his conduct in the compensation scheme, following Jim Beresford and Douglas Smith of Beresford Solicitors (11 December) .
His fellow partner, Malcolm Trotter, was handed a £10,000 fine for his part in the scheme.
Avalon Solicitors first came to national media attention in 2006 when Nulty contacted The Lawyer in 2006 to secure his firm’s inclusion in The Lawyer UK200.
At the 2005-06 year end Avalon brought in £21.2m in fees and made a net profit of £15.5m – a margin of 73 per cent. With just two equity partners, its average profit per equity partner (PEP) was £7.75m, which dwarfed the rest of the UK’s top 100 firms that year.
He told The Lawyer he had decided that after five years of strong growth “the time was now right to start telling people of what we do”.
Nulty took home the lion’s share of the profit, some £13m, with managing partner Anthony Chorlton pocketing around £2.5m. Chorlton was not subject to disciplinary action.
The bulk of Avalon’s turnover, 68 per cent, or £14.4m, came from acting for miners claiming for compensation under the DTI’s ‘Coal Health’ scheme, which closed in March 2004.
The Lawyer understands Nulty has been struck for after the SDT found him guilty of dishonesty. However, he has already parted company with the firm and is no longer a practising lawyer but living in Spain.
Presumably Nulty will be too busy counting his money to even notice the SDT’s ruling. This horse bolted a LONG time ago…
Too little too late for the poor miners and families who lost out to the greedy opportunists.
The fine handed down seems somewhat pathetic in comparison to the profits they were making.
Thank Goodness then for the excellent Legal Complaints Service who have worked tirelessly to try to get the compensation paid back to the miners who lost out by the actions of these firms
Why can’t they recover some of these profits, if he has been found to be ‘dishonest’ in this instance, perhaps there could, or shoul be a law something similar to the proceeds of crime act that recovers monies that have been ferreted away. I’m not a lawyer, just someone whose family is affected this way, and it does feel wrong.
Spotting an oportunity and attracting lots of work is not a crime. Like the previous two solicitors struck off I would like to see more balanced reporting. The lawyers did not write the scheme or decide on the fees it would pay, the courts and Government did in a test case against the NCB. Success fees were legal at the outset and no guarantee of sucess was given so who paid for the losing cases? I do agree the 15% should be repaid but its not entirely the lawyers fault. Think about it.
I can well understand why the posting praising the Legal Complaints Service was anonymous. Your readers would be better advised to look at the tireless campaigning of Lord Lofthouse of Pontefract, a former miner. His name and shame campaigning, reports and speeches brought down the offending Solicitors.
Not entirely the Lawyers’ fault according to another anonymous blogger. “Anon” also calls for more balanced reporting. Really? The SDT Chairman who struck-off Andrew Nulty found that his conduct was “a disgrace to the profession”. There had also been an attempt to deceive a Minister of the Crown, which resulted in a finding of dishonesty against Nulty by the SDT Chairman.
Having failed to secure a Stay of the proceedings on the first day of the Hearing, Nulty had withdrawn and Trotter made belated admissions. The retired miners and widows were betrayed. If you want balanced reporting, then the established facts make for even harder reading.
Brood of Vipers! Hypocrites!! There isn’t one among you that wouldn’t have done the same if it had occurred to you. Sour grapes is the only real mood here – sour grapes that Nulty made the money and got away with it and you didn’t. There isn’t a firm among you that wouldn’t have equitised this guy on performance grounds…you’re just looking for a “ha!” to utter to compensate for the taste of those sour grapes. The real champions are the campaigners for freedom (but they don’t pay as well on legal help do they?)