Cases: Solicitor said she had a heavy workload
A solicitor who admitted lying to a client about receiving a medical report “to buy herself time” has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).
Laura Elizabeth Simpson said she “chickened out” of telling the “challenging” client about the report from the expert, who told the solicitor in an email: “I do not think you have a case here and in any aspect.”
The tribunal said Ms Simpson, who worked for Yorkshire firm Switalskis Solicitors, “had caused harm to Client A, who described being stressed awaiting the report, and that being lied to and misled by Ms Simpson had had a negative impact on her mental health and wellbeing”.
However, the SDT slashed the costs awarded to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in the case from over £30,000 to only £3,000, describing the fixed fee the regulator agreed to pay Blake Morgan as “excessive”.
The SDT heard that Ms Simpson, born in 1984 and admitted in 2009, had conduct of Client A’s medical negligence case from April 2022.
She admitted telling the client on three occasions in nearly two months that she had not received the expert report when actually she had.
Client A only discovered this when she called Ms Simpson’s office after receiving an out-of-office reply to an email chaser and spoke to her secretary.
Ms Simpson accepted that she had been dishonest and that, in the circumstances, a strike off was the appropriate sanction.
She “explained that she had previously had a good relationship with Client A”, but at the time “carried a heavy caseload of complex cases” and “due to the complex nature of the case, the negative medical evidence and the challenging nature of Client A, Ms Simpson stated that she had ‘chickened out’”.
She apologised for her conduct, stating that she knew it was completely unacceptable.
The SDT said Ms Simpson was “motivated by her desire to buy herself time” – her conduct was “in breach of the trust placed in her by Client A to keep her apprised of progress on her case”.
The SRA claimed £30,330 in costs. Taking into account that the matter had been admitted by Ms Simpson from the outset, the tribunal said the SRA’s fixed fee agreed with Blake Morgan was “excessive in all the circumstances”.
A fixed fee was a “commercial agreement” and not binding on the tribunal.
Costs of £5,000 for the case were “reasonable and proportionate”, but the SDT reduced this by a further £2,000 because of Ms Simpson’s limited means.