A high-profile lawyer who was jailed for seven months for drink-driving, crashing into another car and leaving the scene will return to the legal profession later this year, it has been confirmed.
Advocate David Steenson pleaded guilty to one count of drink driving, two counts of dangerous driving and one count of failing to stop after an accident last year.
He was was sentenced to seven months’ imprisonment.
Now, the Royal Court has imposed a 12-month suspension from practice, taking effect from Mr Steenson’s release from prison on 19 December 2025.
This means he will be able to work as a lawyer again from December 2026.
In its judgment, the court stressed that lawyers are judged not only by their professional work but by their private conduct.
“The reputation of the legal profession is inevitably the sum of the reputation of all of its members,” the judgment said, noting that behaviour like this “must, of itself, be injurious to its reputation overall”.
The court heard how Mr Steenson drove while intoxicated, veering across the road and crashing into an oncoming vehicle.
A woman and her 14-year-old daughter suffered whiplash and shock, while their car was so badly damaged that a wheel was torn off.
Instead of stopping, Mr Steenson drove on for more than a mile in his wrecked car before being tracked down by police.
When officers first confronted him, Mr Steenson denied drinking – a statement the court described as “on any analysis, a lie” – before a breath test showed he was more than twice the legal limit.
“We keep in mind that he immediately thereafter agreed to be breathalysed and then agreed to being tested at police headquarters which he must have known would reveal that he had drunk significant quantities of alcohol,” the judgment said.
“Furthermore, he pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity to the charges put before him and although he appealed to the Royal Court, he did not do so against conviction, but rather against sentence.”
The court also noted this was not an isolated lapse.
The offences occurred just days after Mr Steenson had completed community service for a previous alcohol-fuelled assault on a taxi driver – misconduct that had already earned him a three-month suspension.
The Attorney General argued that the behaviour of Mr Steenson was “so serious and the reputation of the legal profession has been damaged so significantly” that he should be struck off entirely.
However, the court concluded that it was not necessary to remove Mr Steenson’s livelihood – pointing to testimonials from more junior colleagues, Mr Steenson’s “entirely genuine” remorse and his role as a “competent and hard-working member of the legal profession”.
The court added that the offending did not involve dishonesty in the carrying out of legal duties – the kind of breach that would “almost inevitably lead to a striking off.”
A year-long suspension, the judgment said, was “hard indeed” for a lawyer at his stage of career, but necessary to protect public confidence and mark the seriousness of the breach.
“We feel that the appropriate penalty, which for a professional at his stage of career is hard indeed, is a suspension from practice for the maximum period possible, namely twelve months, to commence from the date of his release from prison,” the court concluded.
In a brief statement, the Law Society of Jersey confirmed that the Royal Court had found Mr Steenson in breach of Principle 2 of its Code of Conduct – bringing the profession into disrepute – but said that no further comment would be made.