The Solicitors Regulation Authority has moved part of the Post Office Horizon accountability process into formal disciplinary proceedings by referring Jane Elizabeth MacLeod and Nicholas Simon Barry Gould to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
The regulator said the two cases concern conduct after the main events of the scandal and can now proceed because they are unlikely to prejudice criminal investigations or the ongoing public inquiry.
MacLeod, who was general counsel of Post Office Ltd from 2015 to 2019, faces an allegation that between 11 April 2024 and 31 July 2024 she failed to co-operate fully with the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry in relation to a request for her to give oral evidence.
Her tenure overlapped with the Bates litigation, the group claim that exposed the scale of failures around the Horizon IT system and became a defining test of institutional litigation conduct, disclosure judgment and legal accountability.
Regulatory context matters because these are not findings of misconduct, but referrals for the SDT to determine. The allegations against Gould are separate from MacLeod’s and relate to conduct said to have taken place between May 2021 and April 2025. The SRA alleges that Gould failed to provide adequate information about likely overall costs, costs incurred and legal work undertaken for two unnamed clients.
It is also alleged that he raised invoices without adequate justification, sent correspondence that was inappropriate and/or offensive, and breached client confidentiality. Gould represented former sub-postmistress Seema Misra pro bono in connection with the overturning of her conviction in 2021, before later costs issues became the subject of public reporting.
The professional importance is that the SRA is now acting on post-scandal conduct while wider Horizon-related investigations continue. Jonathan Peddie, the regulator’s executive director of investigations, enforcement and litigation, said the SRA is still examining issues linked directly to the Horizon scandal and is working with the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry and the Metropolitan Police.
That matters for solicitors and in-house legal teams because conduct after a major institutional failure can create its own regulatory exposure, especially where inquiry co-operation, costs information, billing records, client confidentiality and correspondence are later scrutinised.
Both referrals require careful wording because the SDT has not made findings against either solicitor. For law firm management, the practical lesson is that files connected to public inquiries or criminal investigations need to show who advised, what was disclosed, how privilege was handled, how costs were explained and how client confidentiality was protected.
The SDT hearings will test how far the Solicitors Regulation Authority can convert the Post Office Horizon accountability process into professional discipline, requiring firms advising institutions under investigation to evidence co-operation, billing decisions and disclosure judgment before regulator scrutiny arrives.