SOLICITOR BLASTED OVER EXCESSIVE CLAIMS
Niels Lockhart, 66, said the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) damaged his reputation by releasing a damning report which laid bare “unnecessary and excessive” payments. He accused them of breaching his confidentiality and sued them for £ 100,000 – but has now dropped the claim. The Sunday Mail obtained the report in 2011. We told how Lockhart claimed more than £600,000 of legal aid in two years and was accused of deliberately ramping up expenses. The SLAB report stated: “He arranges for, or permits, his clients to attend his off ice on numerous occasions for excessive, unnecessary and oftenn irrelevant meetings.” They said the meetingss merely a cted as a mechanism for the firmm to exploit the legal aidid fund. Legal reform campa igner Pet e r Cherbi, who uneartheded
Sunday Mail
the SSLAB repor t through freedom freed of information laws, said: “Lockhart’s history of eyewatering wate legal aid claims was rightly right subjected to public scrutiny scrut yet he seems to see himself hims as the victim.” SLAB SL said: “We were right to mmake public our complaint report repo to the Law Society of Scotland Sco which set out our concerns con about Mr Lockhart’s legal leg aid work. “We successfully defended that tha decision in the court action raised against us by Mr Lockhart Lockha in which he sought payment of damages of £100,000 from SLAB. Mr Lockhart agreed to withdraw his action and pay us expenses of £1750.”
Lockhart said the decision to sue was taken after advice given by counsel who took the case on a no-win, no-fee basis.
He added: “The sum sued for was later altered to £30,000. There was thereafter a change in legal team who were not so optimistic.”
Lockhart claimed none of the SLAB allegations were proved to be correct and that they previously said no public funds had been compromised.