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Discredited race lawyer struck off the roll of solicitors and ordered to pay £1.4million in costs (22 June 2012)

Date: 22/06/2012
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Discredited race lawyer struck off the roll of solicitors and ordered to pay £1.4million in costs

Shahrokh Mireskandari, 51, a prominent race lawyer has been banned from professing law after it was exposed that he had faked his legal qualifications and hid his criminal convictions while representing celebrity clients. He was also ordered to pay £1.4million in costs.
The conman was found guilty of an extraordinary 104 breaches of the rules governing solicitors’ conduct by a central London disciplinary tribunal.
It ruled that while running his London-based law firm, he got into debts, overcharged clients, conducted improper litigation, failed to keep proper records and used clients’ cash to pay staff salaries.
He was exposed by the Mail when it revealed in 2008 that he was a fraudster who had conned his way into the UK legal profession with worthless qualifications acquired from a mail drop Hawaii university who overcharged clients veiled under the mask of a race lawyer. The mail also revealed the improper professional relationship he had with the crooked Scotland Yard commander Ali Dizaei.
When all this was being exposed by the Mail, he was representing ex-Met assistant commissioner Tarique Ghaffur in his race claim against Britain’s biggest force and former commissioner, Sir Ian Blair.
He was also in close contact with Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee, who publicly described him as a ‘very, very dear friend’ and also as the ‘best lawyer in Britain’.
After the investigation by the Mail and its aftermath saw, Mireskandari being suspended from practising as a solicitor and his firm closed down, Dizaei was suspended and Mr Ghaffur had to drop his £1million-plus race claim.
A six week misconduct hearing had led to Mireskandari being struck out of the legal profession despite his efforts to stall the proceedings.
He was represented by 17 barristers but panel chairman Jacqueline Devonish said that allegations of dishonesty had been proved.
She said it was incredible that the solicitor could have achieved top marks in his doctorate at the discredited American University of Hawaii, while at the same time working full-time and being thrown out of three law schools for poor performance.
It also ruled that ‘without a shadow of a doubt’ he acted dishonestly when he hid his criminal convictions for 15 counts of telemarketing fraud in America from the Law Society and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) when he returned to the UK.
The panel found 54 separate breaches of the Solicitors’ Code of Conduct, 36 of the Solicitors’ Account Rules and 14 of the Solicitors’ Practice Rules.
Mireskandari claimed he was the victim of a racially motivated vendetta by the SRA and the Mail. But the tribunal dismissed this.
Striking him off, Miss Devonish said the respondent Shahrokh Mireskandari, solicitor, be struck off the Roll of Solicitors and the tribunal further ordered him to pay costs of £1.4million.

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