Ban for law firm event executive who kept raffle prizes for herself


Raffle: Three prizes kept

An events executive at a well-known London law firm who kept raffle prizes for herself has been banned from working in the profession.

Shaneke Rochelle Ellis was also rebuked, fined £2,000 and ordered to pay £600 towards the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s costs.

She worked for Westminster firm Bircham Dyson Bell for 13 months until she was dismissed in October 2016.

She was found to have told various organisations that her husband worked for the firm in its events team as well when he did not.

Further, she told an organisation which had donated a pair of tickets to the cricket as a prize to the firm’s Christmas raffle that a former employee had won them when he had not.

Ms Ellis also provided a false postal address for the purported winner – the address she gave was her own.

She received two more prizes for a purported raffle in March 2016 which she again retained for her own use.

The SRA said that Ms Ellis acted dishonestly in relation to each of these actions.

Under section 43 of the Solicitors Act 1974, no solicitor can employ her without the SRA’s permission. The regulator said she was not currently working at an SRA-regulated practice.

The SRA has also made legal executive Smina Sadiq subject to a section 43 order after she backdated a letter to another firm of solicitors and “created a document which included false statements about the steps she had taken in progressing a client’s matter”.

In a notice published today, the SRA said she was employed as a legal executive at Clyde & Co Claims in Manchester for six months in 2017. She was found to have acted dishonestly.




Leave a Comment

By clicking Submit you consent to Legal Futures storing your personal data and confirm you have read our Privacy Policy and section 5 of our Terms & Conditions which deals with user-generated content. All comments will be moderated before posting.

Required fields are marked *
Email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Blog


Legal project management – a mindset lawyers can easily apply

Where budgets are tight, lawyers will be considering what’s in their existing arsenal to still improve productivity. One effective, accessible and cheap tool is legal project management.


How a good customer journey can put your business on the map

Good customer service should be a priority for any business and, if you want to stay ahead of the competition, something that’s constantly under review.


The CAT’s welcome boost for the funding industry

There was welcome guidance from the Competition Appeal Tribunal this week for funded cases looking for certainty following PACCAR, with the renegotiated Sony litigation funding agreement upheld as lawful.


Loading animation