What’s the Latest in the Legal Disciplinary Decision World?

Andy Donovan, Managing Director and Founder of Compliance Office

Unwanted and offensive messages

A former IT service desk analyst at Pinsent Masons has been banned from working in the legal industry for sending “offensive” messages to a colleague. He sent a number of messages to another member of staff using the firm’s communication systems which contained offensive language directed to the recipient. This is an essential reminder that the SRA’s Standards and Regulations apply to all those who work in a law firm, whether legally qualified or not! If you would like your staff to be more aware of this, please get in touch with Compliance Office to learn more about their courses.

Further, a former partner at Capsticks has agreed with the SRA that he will remove himself from the Roll of Solicitors for three years and accepted a rebuke. He sent numerous inappropriate and unwanted messages that could have been interpreted as sexual in nature to a junior colleague (of whom he was line manager) over a period of months. In addition, he made inappropriate comments about her sex life, her becoming pregnant and her taking maternity leave.

When does delay amount to manifest incompetence?

A decade according to a recent Tribunal case.

A manifestly incompetent solicitor did not touch their probate file for a decade. We have not seen a case of manifest incompetence on this scale for a while. The solicitor admitted that he failed to progress three probate matters over several years, one of them an estate worth £4 million! The SDT imposed a fine of £16,000 for multiple breaches over several years.

If you don’t think a decade is long enough to fulfil client instructions, our next case can beat that as this solicitor took 13 years to apply to restore a company to the company’s register. She was fined £2,000 for the repeated delay in following the client’s instructions.

Penalised for accepting gifts

A former Partner at Gateley has been suspended from the profession for 12 months after he accepted a £2,500 gift from a client into his personal bank account without declaring it to the firm. This is in contravention of their policy which required written records to be kept of gifts worth more than £250. In addition to accepting the gift, the partner emailed the client requesting a further benefit for introducing them to a business partner. The SRA said that an employed solicitor, approaching a client for payment over and above that already agreed with his firm, would damage the public’s trust in the profession.

The serious consequences of acting dishonestly

A solicitor who confirmed that two affidavits had been signed and sworn in her presence, when they had not been, has been struck off.
An experienced chartered executive with over 20 years of experience has been banned from working in legal practice by the SRA after backdating a client’s signature on two separate occasions.
Falsifying signatures on witness statements will also get you disqualified from holding roles in a licensed body.

More regulatory action following AML visits by the SRA

A firm was fined £2,000 plus costs for failing to have an AML firm-wide risk assessment in place following a declaration to the SRA that it did have one. This firm also failed to have compliant AML policies, controls and procedures, and failed over several transactions to conduct adequate monitoring.

About Compliance Office

Founded by Andy Donovan, a former SRA legal policy advisor, Compliance Office’s team of consultants draws on years of experience and a proprietary set of tools and templates to help law firms with all of their compliance needs. The merger enables VinciWorks to provide an end-to-end AML package including a CDD client onboarding tool, AML training and compliance consulting, as well as an all-in-one SRA solution that includes training, compliance software, and consultancy.

VinciWorks recently partnered with Compliance Office to offer you a full range of compliance training, software, and consultancy services.

Our combined services and software include:

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