A solicitors' watchdog has called for a change in the law after it was unable to impose an effective punishment on a lawyer jailed for drug dealing.
Angela Baillie was sentenced to 32 months for smuggling heroin and valium into Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow.
By the time the Law Society referred her case to the Scottish Solicitors' Discipline Tribunal, Baillie had applied successfully to have her name removed from the roll of solicitors.
The tribunal is concerned that it could only censure the former lawyer instead of the maximum penalty of striking her from the register and has called for a change.
It wants a member with proceedings pending to be unable to remove their name so that it can take action.
Baillie, of Birnam Place, Glasgow, was jailed in April last year for delivering a cigarette packet stuffed with heroin and valium worth almost £1600 to a man in Barlinnie.
The case came before the tribunal in December but her name had been removed from the roll two days after she was convicted.
In a written ruling yesterday, the tribunal expressed concern about lacking the power to impose an appropriate punishment. It said: "The offences to which Baillie pled guilty before the High Court strike at the very heart of the obligations of honesty and integrity which are incumbent on every solicitor.
"It is difficult to imagine conduct more calculated to damage the profession in the eyes of the public."
It stated it was "wholly unsatisfactory" that the tribunal could not show the public and other lawyers the "odium" they felt about Baillie's conduct.
The judgment stated: "The tribunal wishes to place on record its concern that it lacks the power to impose upon the respondent a penalty which it would regard as appropriate in the circumstances of this case, but is placed in the position of doing no more than impose an inadequate and ineffective penalty."
The tribunal called on the Law Society to take urgent steps to change the rules on such matters.
Once a name has been removed from the roll, the tribunal is only able to issue a censure or a fine. However if the person has been sentenced to more than two years in prison it is unable to impose a financial penalty, and as Baillie was jailed for 32 months the only option remaining to the frustrated tribunal was censure.
One possibility recommended is that a solicitor should not be allowed to remove their name from the roll when disciplinary action is possible.
At the trial, Judge Lord Kinclaven told Baillie: "Your case, like many others in this court, clearly illustrates the damage and devastation that can be caused by involvement with drugs and the drug trade."
"The quantities of the drugs made it plain they were not for personal use. They were for supply in the prison system generally."
He added: "You were in a position of trust."
Baillie had used the lawyers' consulting room at Barlinnie for the hand-over on October 23, 2005.
The prisoner she met, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was strip-searched as he left the meeting and the cigarette packet was found.
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