Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal suspends suspension on a solicitor who backdated letter to ​“relieve pressure of further email enquiries”.

The solicitor, who at the time worked for a law firm based in Liverpool, claimed to have suffered a “momentary lapse of judgment.” The lapse subsequently led to the solicitor creating and backdating a letter in response to the mounting pressure they felt due to another colleague.

The SDT has now ruled the solicitor in question may continue in practice. After being admitted in 2004, the solicitor was suspended from practice for two years. Originally an associate of the firm, the solicitor was the fee earner for a matter concerning claims against a landlord.

Following inquiries from a colleague, the solicitor reportedly created and backdated a letter to their client’s landlord to make it appear as if work had been completed on the client file. It was later discovered that no such work had been done. 

When quizzed by her colleagues on where the letter was, the solicitor “admitted that she had been mistaken about the date that the letter had been sent” and was dismissed for gross misconduct in March last year.

In the judgement following the hearing on August 2024 (see here), the SDT claimed that the solicitor’s conduct had been motivated by “a desire to avoid further criticism from a colleague repeatedly demanding to be furnished with an immediate update as to what work had been done”.

The judgement also found the solicitor ‘had manually changed the date on the document to make it appear as if she had been working on the document on that date in circumstances where she had not”.

In consideration of the solicitor’s mitigation, the tribunal added: “At the relevant time, the respondent had been struggling with the volume of work within the firm, and the day before the misconduct, had had a very challenging work schedule which had resulted in her working till late in the evening”.

The tribunal also remarked on the solicitor’s “unblemished and exemplary professional and regulatory history,” whilst noting she had been dishonest and directly responsible for the misconduct.

“The act of dishonesty was an isolated incident as it had not been elaborately pre-planned (…) it was nonetheless capable of affecting the reputation of the profession.”

The solicitor’s 12-month suspension from practice, commencing on 29 August 2024, was suspended for a period of two years. In conclusion, she was also ordered to pay £10,000 costs.

The perceived benefit of the backdated letter was “very marginal” and “would have involved no more than the respondent being relieved of the pressure of further email enquiries.”

The SDT described the solicitor’s misconduct as “a response to the pressure experienced from her colleague’s enquiries” and that it was “in effect, a momentary lapse of judgment in an otherwise unblemished legal career.”

Source: here

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