A DLA Piper junior associate has been struck off for faking court documents.
28-year-old Laura Holloway was working in the firm's Sheffield office in 2013 when her supervisor called her in for a meeting with the office HR director following a concerned call from a client.
The client had discovered that his case has been struck out of the county court, but Holloway had not told him. Or the firm. When quizzed, the 2PQE solicitor admitted that the claim had been thrown out because she had failed to pay a court fee or respond to a Notice to Pay. But she said that she had submitted a reinstatement application. After leaving the meeting for 15 minutes to find the documents, reports the Law Gazette, Holloway returned with copies of the application and two letters she sent to Croydon County Court.
Except she hadn't sent them, as a subsequent internal investigation by DLA discovered. When management called her in again, she told them that she had "reproduced" the documents, although in fact they were the only ones that had existed. Confessing that she had been dishonest, she said there were "mitigating factors".
Holloway was sacked on the spot, but appealed the decision. She lost and the firm reported her to the SRA, which referred her to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal on the basis of several allegations, including failing to act in the best interests of her client, failing to provide a proper standard of service and failing to act with integrity. Holloway did not cooperate with the investigation or attend her hearing, and this week was struck off the roll and ordered to pay £5,900 costs.
A spokeswoman for DLA Piper declined to comment. Meanwhile, DLA Gashgate parter Nick West awaits his turn in the SDT spotlight.
Tip Off ROF
28-year-old Laura Holloway was working in the firm's Sheffield office in 2013 when her supervisor called her in for a meeting with the office HR director following a concerned call from a client.
The client had discovered that his case has been struck out of the county court, but Holloway had not told him. Or the firm. When quizzed, the 2PQE solicitor admitted that the claim had been thrown out because she had failed to pay a court fee or respond to a Notice to Pay. But she said that she had submitted a reinstatement application. After leaving the meeting for 15 minutes to find the documents, reports the Law Gazette, Holloway returned with copies of the application and two letters she sent to Croydon County Court.
Except she hadn't sent them, as a subsequent internal investigation by DLA discovered. When management called her in again, she told them that she had "reproduced" the documents, although in fact they were the only ones that had existed. Confessing that she had been dishonest, she said there were "mitigating factors".
"This is a great idea. This is definitely a great idea." |
Holloway was sacked on the spot, but appealed the decision. She lost and the firm reported her to the SRA, which referred her to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal on the basis of several allegations, including failing to act in the best interests of her client, failing to provide a proper standard of service and failing to act with integrity. Holloway did not cooperate with the investigation or attend her hearing, and this week was struck off the roll and ordered to pay £5,900 costs.
A spokeswoman for DLA Piper declined to comment. Meanwhile, DLA Gashgate parter Nick West awaits his turn in the SDT spotlight.
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My first ever boss always said if you make a mistake put your hand up because we can probably fix it, it's only when you try to do it yourself or cover it up that it becomes impossible to fix. In another firm they had the nicest ever partner as the prof neg partner. He was totally nonjudgmental if you went to see him to fess up, which I had to on one occasion though it turned out I was wrong about being wrong.
DLA had a problem on one file. There are other firms with a similar profile who to my knowledge have had much bigger problems like this but they didn't report to the SRA so avoided this publicity. DLA did the right thing in my view in the knowledge it would become public. They could have hushed it up, or maybe not as they spend their lives on the pages of this esteemed website!
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This isn't a first seat trainee panicking and making a silly mistake. She was 2 PQE, meaning she'd been a lawyer for a full 4 years, who chose to conceal critical information to the detriment of her own client and then lie about it when challenged. I'm finding it really tough to see how striking her off was anything but a fair result.
I'm not saying DLA shouldn't have had better or more open lines of supervision, such that it shouldn't have been possible for the matter to reach this stage, but we're a regulated profession and there needs to be some individual accountability.
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On the other hand, here's a general rule: in 99% of situations where someone who works for you does something stupid like this, there's something you could have done to prevent it, and you probably owed it to the person in question to do so. And let's just say that some firms have a good reputation for looking after their people, such that when this sort of thing happens you tend to think: oh well, I guess they just came across a bad apple. Whereas there are some firms with, well, not so good a reputation for workplace culture where you think [i]"hmm - it's probably you"[/i]. At least to an extent.
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On the other hand, here's a general rule: in 99% of situations where someone who works for you does something stupid like this, there's something you could have done to prevent it, and you probably owed it to the person in question to do so. And let's just say that some firms have a good reputation for looking after their people, such that when this sort of thing happens you tend to think: oh well, I guess they just came across a bad apple. Whereas there are some firms with, well, not so good a reputation for workplace culture where you think [i]"hmm - it's probably you"[/i]. At least to an extent.
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