"Biggart Baillie were originally instructed by the petitioners on behalf of the second respondent to provide an independent expert opinion on the standard of certain conveyancing work carried out by the second respondent's previous solicitor. The opinion was sought to allow consideration of a claim for negligence by the second respondent against that solicitor. By separate letter to Biggart Baillie the petitioners asked Biggart Baillie to advise the petitioners as to the petitioners' own position. Biggart Baillie responded to both letters of instruction with a single composite reply. One paragraph thereof dealt with the petitioners' position. The petitioners asked Biggart Baillie to re-issue their reply with that paragraph deleted, and Biggart Baillie complied with this request. The re-issued letter was sent to the second respondent but the original letter was not."

"My submission would be that in a case such as this where a formal opinion is delivered and it sets alarm bells ringing the proper course to have been followed would have been to have passed the first opinion to Mr. Lloyd and either to justify why that opinion is wrong or to invite Mr. Lloyd to obtain alternative representation, not to concoct a separate opinion which makes no reference to the difficulty or the potential difficulty, given that that opinion is instructed on behalf of Mr. Lloyd. This was not a confidential communication, this was not the solicitor privately discussing matters or obtaining assistance from a solicitor, this was an opinion instructed on behalf of their client and when the alarm bells are set ringing at that point the client should be made aware as to the potential difficulty, and if the appellants felt that they could justify their position then they should advance argument to the client."

" ... the Tribunal accept that there may have been no obligation on the Appellants to disclose an opinion which indicated that they were at fault. However the Appellants argue that the paragraph in the first opinion is not prejudicial to them as there was nothing in the planning permission which put them on notice that they needed to look at the plans. If this was the case there should have been no difficulty in the Appellants providing the Lay Complainer with a copy of the first opinion but explaining that they had done nothing wrong. What the Appellants did do however was to provide the Lay Complainer with a sanitised copy of the opinion. The Tribunal consider that they set out to deceive the Lay Complainer by providing him with this doctored opinion. This is contrary to the duty to properly communicate with the client and is damaging to the relationship of trust between the solicitor and client. There was some suggestion that there were two letters sent to Messrs Biggart Baillie one asking for advice for the Lay Complainer and one asking for advice concerning the Appellants position. This would however not seem logical as it would suggest that the Appellants were already aware that there may be a conflict of interest situation. The Tribunal was satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the Appellants failure to communicate to the Lay Complainer that the opinion sent was a sanitized version of an opinion which had been issued thereby depriving the client of the knowledge of a potential conflict of interest situation between the client and the Appellants amounted to provision of an inadequate professional service. The Tribunal accordingly varied the determination of the Law Society and found that the Appellants provided an inadequate professional service in that they issued an abridged version of an expert report and deprived the client of knowledge of potential conflict of interest."