A Clyde & Co senior associate has been struck off after sitting on a claim for months until a default judgment was made against his client, then not telling anyone for a year while he tried to set it aside by himself.

In January 2013 aviation lawyer Rajpal Ahluwalia was told to handle a claim brought by a gliding instructor against the firm's client, an insurer, after one of his passengers suffered "catastrophic injuries" in a glider crash. The victim won a £2.5 million settlement against the instructor, who was seeking to recoup £500,000 from the insurer through the High Court in Manchester.

The other side agreed to weeks of time extensions requested by Ahluwalia while he purported to seek instructions from his client and file a defence, although Clyde & Co's records showed that he did not record any time on the matter. On 26 February 2013, the other side informed Ahluwalia that they would apply for a default judgment if a defence was not filed by 30 April. On 1 May Ahluwalia asked for another extension, but it was too late and a fortnight later the court awarded damages of £500,000 plus costs of £16,000. According to the SRA, for the next ten months Ahluwalia did not tell the client or the firm what had happened while he attempted unsuccessfully to set aside the judgment. Ahluwalia's troubles came to light in September 2014 when the file was transferred to a partner. Clyde & Co sought advice from counsel, who said there was a 35-40% chance of setting aside the judgment. The firm decided to settle with the claimant and suspended Ahluwalia, who subsequently resigned. The firm also reported him to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. 

The strategy that never fails.

Although Ahluwalia accepted that he had been negligent, he denied lack of integrity and dishonesty. His counsel claimed that Ahluwalia told his supervisor the truth about the judgment, but she decided to keep it quiet. He also said Ahluwalia's repeated statements to the claimant's solicitors that he was "seeking instructions" when he had done nothing were not a deception but "litigation speak". 

But the SRA pointed out that Ahluwalia's only client update in almost two years was a single email which neglected to mention that it was now on the hook for over £500,000. The email was never received because Ahluwalia misspelled the client's name and the company in the address, which the SRA said was a deliberate attempt to fool his supervisor into thinking he was dealing with the case satisfactorily while avoiding alerting the client. Ahluwalia's supervisor testified that when the firm received a statutory demand for the money, he told her it had been issued in error and related to another party. She said if she had known the truth, "on a scale of 0 to 10" she "would have placed it at 11" and reported it to the firm's risk team and the client relationship partner.

The tribunal found her to be a "witness of truth" and that Ahluwalia had been dishonest and lacking in integrity. Ruling that he had "cavalierly allowed the matter to go from bad to worse", it stuck him off and has ordered him to pay a crippling £41,250 in costs. A spokesman for Clyde & Co told RollOnFriday, "as a senior member of the team Rajpal should have been responsible for setting an example to others and, like everyone at the firm, for upholding our code of conduct and client service standards".

Ahluwalia told RollOnFriday, "I strongly disagree with some of the findings and the final outcome of the SDT hearing, but I have little option other than to accept it, due to the oppressive costs and timescales of the entire process. My focus in the last two and a half years has been to rebuild my life outside of active practice as a Solicitor, so I was defending this case on a point of principle". He said, "I am truly humbled by the way my family found the strength to stand up in support of me whilst we went through some extremely difficult personal challenges outside of this case, which shall remain private. My aim now is to do my best by the two angels in my life".