A lawyer has been struck off and ordered to pay more than £40,000 after calling ‘biblical curses’ on a barrister after a clash over a client’s will. 

Solicitor Alvin Just sent ‘inappropriate and unprofessional’ emails to barrister Philip Noble after the pair disagreed over a will dispute at Central London County Court in 2017.

He said in one message to Mr Noble: ‘You are just fading away one step closer to your grave… I will not lose any sleep for your nonsense, as I know the plagues will fall on you just like Pharaoh…

‘You remind (me of) a Grade 7 bully I had to slam to the ground.’

He also sent messages to Mr Noble’s client, including: ‘Your judgement is coming soon beware, and it will not be an easy one, the Most High knows that… Just remember that whosoever diggeth a pit shall fall in it.’

Mr Just, 51, a partner at London-based firm Just & Brown Solicitors, was put before a disciplinary tribunal in 2022 after Mr Noble flagged concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) over the emails he’d been sent.

In the judgement striking him off earlier on in February, the SRA tribunal said: ‘Even in the context of hostile litigation, members of the public would expect solicitors to be robust, but temperate in the language they used when communicating with the other side.

The Tottenham-based lawyer failed to ensure a client’s money was kept in a separate ‘client account’ and refused to cooperate with the subsequent investigation from the SRA by deliberately withholding information and misleading the SRA in a number of material matters.

Mr Just argued in his defence that Mr Noble had a ‘serious vendetta’ against him and therefore did not accept his comments were ‘inappropriate’.

He claimed quoting Bible passages was not a breach of his duties but the tribunal found them unprofessional and ‘extremely hostile litigation’ that was inappropriate.

The tribunal concluded Mr Just be struck off the Roll of Solicitors and ordered to pay £41,896.20.