A SOLICITOR who paid himself £13 million last year has been charged with professional misconduct over the handling of compensation claims by sick miners.

Andrew Nulty, 42, the highest-earning solicitor in Britain in 2005-06, has been ordered to appear before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Mr Nulty, whose father and grandfather were miners, heads a list of Britain’s top-earning lawyers that was published yesterday by The Lawyer magazine.

He is the senior partner of Avalon Solicitors, which has made multimillion-pound profits by settling damages claims on behalf of thousands of miners with respiratory disease.

Avalon, based in Warrington, Cheshire, came under investigation after former miners and their families complained to the Law Society about the way their claims were handled.

The investigation resulted in Mr Nulty and his managing partner, Anthony Chorlton, facing 12 alleged offences of professional misconduct.

Avalon registered more than 32,000 chest disease coal claims, of which 13,327 have so far been settled by payment of damages.

For its work on those claims, the firm has been paid £28.3 million in legal fees by the Department of Trade and Industry, which has responsibility for the former British Coal’s liabilities. The Times can disclose that this is more than the total of £27.2 million paid in damages to the 13,327 claimants.

It is alleged by the Law Society that the firm additionally boosted its profitability by slicing money from the compensation awards made to individual clients. Avalon denies this.

The firm, which brought in £21.2 million in fees during the past financial year and made a net profit of £15.5 million, has only two partners.

It is estimated that Mr Nulty received £13 million as his share of the profits, while Mr Chorlton took home £2.5 million. Almost 70 per cent of the firm’s turnover came from handling coal health claims.

Mr Nulty was unavailable for comment yesterday but Mr Chorlton said that the firm had instructed its professional advisers “to openly assist with any inquiry” by the Law Society.

No law firm in Britain can match Avalon’s average profit per equity partner of £7.75 million, but 18 QCs, specialising chiefly in tax and commercial work, are estimated to be breaking the £2 million barrier of gross earnings.

The silks specialise in work for large commercial corporations which can save their clients many millions of pounds, so their hefty legal fees pale into insignificance.

Tax solicitors say that, while rates at the tax bar are high, the barristers are worth the money because of the huge sums and business reputations at stake.

Meanwhile, the majority of the Bar who do criminal legal aid work or family cases are still waiting for an increase in fees that have been frozen for ten years.

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