A UK solicitor has lost his practising certificate after charging £750 an hour to attend a client’s funeral.

York lawyer Philip Crowe, 79, was hired in 2000 to prepare a will and act as executor and trustee of an estate. When the client died, Mr Crowe was instructed to distribute £3,000 from the estate to 11 charities.

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After reaping a hefty fee of £71,646, Mr Crowe dipped into the estate for £121,950 to pay back debt.

Claiming that his client had requested he be paid handsomely and that he deserved to be paid for attending a funeral, Mr Crowe even put in a bill for paying his respects.

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Mr Crowe was found to have padded his legal fees by £51,000 and a tribunal ruled that he was “without integrity”, was in breach of Solicitors Regulation Authority accounting rules and should be struck off.





Solicitor counts client’s funeral as one more billable hour Felicity Nelson Last Updated: 22 July 2016 Published: 14 December 2015