EXCLUSIVE: Lawyer charged dead friend's estate £10,200 for work worth £18 ... Highland solicitor Torquil Macleod guilty of professional misconduct ... but Scottish legal self-regulation results in £3,000 fine after he is backed by sheriff

A ROGUE lawyer overcharged by £15,583 while dealing with the multi-million pound estate of a dead friend.

Torquil Macleod, 63, took £33,533 in fees over five years following the death of his client and friend in 2007.

Auditors found that the correct charge for Macleod’s work should have been £17,314.

The dead client, whose identity has been withheld by legal regulators, left an estate worth £4.4million, which included properties in England.

The Inverness-based solicitor’s "grossly excessive" fees were discovered during a Law Society of Scotland routine audit in 2014.

It found that in 2012 he took £10,200 - when he was entitled to just £18.

The Law Society referred Macleod to the Scottish Solicitors’ Discipline Tribunal who found him guilty of professional misconduct and fined him £3,000.

Macleod’s lawyer said that his professional relationship with the late client had “grown into a friendship”.

He also said the overcharging happened while Macleod, who later repaid the money, was “having trouble” with a former legal partner.

In its written findings, the SSDT said Macleod’s conduct was “sufficiently serious and reprehensible to amount to professional misconduct” but happened at a “difficult time” in his personal and professional life.

They also said Macleod made a “significant error of judgement”, adding: “However, this was an isolated incident rather than a repeated course of conduct. He had a previously unblemished record.”

The findings made no mention of the effect of Macleod’s actions on his late client’s children. 

Macleod took the cash while a partner in his own firm Torquil Macleod & Co in Inverness.

During the hearing, an unnamed local sheriff and a “blue chip” law firm partner provided references on behalf of Macleod.

The lawyer, a former dean of the Faculty of Solicitors of the Highlands, is now a consultant with Wright, Johnston & Mackenzie LLP in Inverness.

One the firm’s website he says: “I strive to help, not hinder, clients in achieving their goals and objectives.”

A spokeswoman for Wright, Johnston & McKenzie said that Macleod declined to comment.

A version of this story was first published by The Herald newspaper on December 2, 2017