Michael Carl Lillywhite

Introduction

Michael Carl Lillywhite is an English solicitor who was struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal after it found that he backdated a document on a probate file and sent a misleading email to another client, shortly after joining a West Midlands law firm as a partner. The tribunal decided that the mitigation he offered — which included evidence that he was experiencing significant mental health difficulties at the time — did not amount to exceptional circumstances such as to order anything other than the usual sanction in cases of dishonesty. It accepted there had been no personal gain and no direct harm, and noted his previously unblemished career and good character, but still imposed the profession’s harshest sanction: removal from the roll, along with a £15,000 costs order.

Background Information

Lillywhite qualified as a solicitor in 2012. In January 2023 he joined George Green, a West Midlands firm, as a fixed-share private client partner. One of the matters he worked on was a probate file that moved with him from his previous practice. By his own account, he had been diagnosed with depression and anxiety in 2019, for which he received counselling and took medication, and he told the tribunal his symptoms were at their worst in early 2023, impairing his memory and judgment. He attributed that exacerbation to the career move itself and to a dispute with his former firm.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Adjudicated vs. alleged. What follows rests on findings of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, which found that Lillywhite’s actions were dishonest, lacked integrity and misled others. His own account — that he did not intend to mislead anyone, was “not in a rational state of mind” and acted in panic and haste, and that he believed no capital gains tax would ultimately be payable — is his evidence and mitigation, carried here as such, as is his mental-health evidence.

Working on the probate file that had moved with him, Lillywhite created and backdated the front page of a memorandum of appropriation in February 2023. The document had been executed that same month, and the tribunal found the backdating was done to give the false impression that it predated completion. He told the tribunal he had not intended to mislead. He said he believed no capital gains tax would ultimately be payable in the estate “and, in that sense, the [memorandum] became ‘merely for show’ to demonstrate to colleagues his competence in the legal discipline in which he was working”.

Separately, Lillywhite sent another client a letter in late January enclosing a draft will. The client replied on 3 March stating that nothing had been received and providing his new address. Lillywhite then edited the will to insert the new address and emailed it to the client stating: “How strange, I have checked the details, and all seems to be fine.” He explained that he had typed that sentence “off the top of my head” before checking the file, and did not revise it before sending the updated will. The SDT recorded that he “accepted that, read now, the email would be misleading, but maintained that he did not intend to mislead the client”.

The tribunal found his actions were dishonest, lacked integrity and misled others. The dishonesty over the memorandum was “not momentary”: “It unfolded over a period of days, requiring deliberation and the execution of a number of steps rather than a single spontaneous act.” On the email, it said that although “less serious in its potential consequences”, it “nevertheless involved the respondent knowingly sending a misleading email to a client which concealed an earlier error and created a false impression of what had occurred”, conduct that unfolded over “a matter of minutes” but “was nonetheless deliberate”. That the two incidents happened so close together, the tribunal said, “demonstrated a pattern of conduct in which the respondent chose to conceal the true position rather than act with the candour and transparency required of a solicitor”.

Public Reaction and Consequences

George Green dismissed Lillywhite when his actions came to light and reported him to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, and the matter ultimately came before the SDT. The tribunal was explicit about what weighed in his favour: it accepted there was no personal gain and no direct harm, that he was experiencing significant mental health difficulties at the time, and it noted that he had previously enjoyed an unblemished career and was of good character. “However, when balanced against the nature, scope, and extent of the dishonesty in each instance, and the degree of culpability involved, the tribunal concluded that the mitigation advanced, whether taken individually or cumulatively, did not amount to exceptional circumstances.” It struck him off and ordered him to pay costs of £15,000.

Current Status

Lillywhite was struck off in a decision reported in May 2026, meaning he can no longer practise as a solicitor, and he remains liable for the £15,000 costs order. He told the tribunal that he has since addressed his mental health issues, changed his medication and is now settled personally and professionally. His explanation for the memorandum — panic, haste and a document that had become ‘merely for show’ — and his insistence that neither act was intended to mislead, did not persuade the tribunal to depart from the striking-off outcome.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The strike-off ends, at a stroke, a legal career that had run unblemished since 2012 and a partnership that had begun only weeks before the first incident. Lillywhite went from fixed-share private client partner at George Green to dismissed employee, SRA report subject and then a respondent before the SDT, with a £15,000 costs liability on top of the loss of his livelihood. The tribunal’s reasoning is the sharpest lesson in the case: mitigation that included significant mental health difficulties, an unblemished record and the absence of personal gain or direct harm was balanced against “the nature, scope, and extent of the dishonesty in each instance” and found not to amount to exceptional circumstances — the usual sanction in dishonesty cases applied regardless.