Former Convey Law managing director Lloyd Davies has been permanently disqualified from being regulated by the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) after being found guilty of misconduct and misleading learners registered with training company the Conveyancing Academy.
An adjudication panel took action to ban Davies from the profession after hearing how the high-profile licensed conveyancer failed to tell more than 300 apprentices and students that his training academy had lost its official accreditation.
Consequently, the work they were doing towards becoming licensed conveyancers and conveyancing technicians was rendered worthless.
Davies accepted that his actions had been dishonest, lacked integrity and were reckless, with the punishment of permanent disqualification from the profession deemed appropriate and agreed to pay costs of £175,000.
Davies, who first qualified as a solicitor in 1995, becoming a licensed conveyancer in 2009, was the founder and until December managing director of South Wales firm Convey Law, as well as of the charity the Conveyancing Foundation. He remains chief executive of IT company Convey365.
Davies launched The Conveyancing Academy (TCA) in 2014, offering among other courses the Level 6 licensed conveyancer and Level 4 conveyancing technician qualifications under the auspices of the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).
However, on 21 April 2021, TCA was suspended from offering SQA-approved qualifications or advertising itself as an SQA approved centre as the authority was conducting an investigation into exam malpractice.
On 14 October 2021, following the investigation, the SQA permanently removed TCA’s approval with immediate effect, a decision upheld on appeal two months later and on second appeal in March 2022.
The adjudication panel decision said that TCA continued “to purport to deliver L4 and L6 diplomas” after the suspension and to advertise itself as SQA approved, including when Davies spoke at the Society of Licensed Conveyancers annual conference in November 2021.
As well as continuing to take on new students, TCA sent “learners and employers communications which misleadingly created the impression the learners were still on courses that would lead to CLC qualifications and which failed to inform them that the centre had lost its SQA approval”.
It was generally only when students and employers communicated directly with the SQA, typically many months later when assessments were not returned, that they learned what had happened. Students were able to carry over work that had already been assessed by the SQA to another provider.
Davies also failed to inform the Department of Education about the SQA action, as he was required to under the apprenticeships provider agreement, nor Cardiff and Vale College under its agreement with TCA.
A CLC spokeswoman said Davies’ actions “damaged the education of many trainee licensed conveyancers who were working hard to achieve their ambitions to enter the legal profession”.
She added: “It brought into disrepute the reputation of the profession of which he was a member and harmed the efforts of so many to increase the numbers of qualified licensed conveyancers.
“It is always regrettable to have to take such action, but we are satisfied with the outcome and grateful to those who stepped forward to assist.”
