Contract: Solicitor claimed she did not know she was banned from other jobs
A locum solicitor whose timesheets claimed for the same time from two different firms – while employed full-time at a third firm – has been struck off.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) said Belinda Owusuah Sarkodie took advantage of the end of the stamp duty holiday in June 2021 for financial gain.
Ms Sarkodie, who qualified in 2020, joined conveyancing firm Muve based in South-West London on 4 May 2021 as a full-time member of staff. Her contract was terminated at the end of September 2021 due to poor performance.
She was also contracted as a locum by PLS Solicitors in Manchester between 17 June and 16 July, and by Morecombe firm Wright & Lord from 29 June to 30 July. The stamp duty holiday ended on 30 June.
This meant that between 29 June and 16 July, Ms Sarkodie was simultaneously working for three firms, all remotely.
The SDT noted that the firms “expressed dissatisfaction with her output and performance” – she was “not readily contactable whilst working remotely, clients had complained and unsatisfactory work that ought to have to have been completed by the respondent (and for which [she] was remunerated) was subsequently redone by other members of staff”.
The SDT found that the timesheets she submitted to both PLS and Wright & Lord showed that she had claimed for “the same hours, on the same days” from both firms.
Ms Sarkodie said she moved between tasks for each firm throughout the day, describing the timesheets as accurate as to the total hours worked overall, rather than an accurate record of the time spent on a particular working day for each firm.
The SDT rejected this explanation and found she had acted dishonestly.
It said: “If [she] had provided accurate timesheets to the firms detailing the actual time worked as she moved between their respective tasks interspersed through the working day, the firms would have identified that she was working simultaneously for several firms and taken action.
“This was the reason that [she] prepared the timesheets in the way that she did and it had the effect of misleading them.”
This finding was consistent with Ms Sarkodie denying to a recruitment consultant that she was working for more than one firm, the tribunal said.
Unspecified evidence about the solicitor’s health was “inconsistent with the hours that she purportedly worked and claimed for on the timesheets,” it went on.
“The respondent submitted that she took on three simultaneous roles to distract her from her poor health and the isolation she felt during the pandemic. The respondent submitted that on occasion she worked 100 hours per week during this period because she ‘knew how to cope best with [her] work so focused on that’.
“The tribunal found that the respondent’s evidence lacked credibility.”
Ms Sarkodie was also found to have misled Muve about her other jobs, which her contract prohibited her from taking.
The SDT rejected her claim that she had not read her contract properly: “The respondent was in a substantive full-time post whilst also seeking out further employment.
“In those circumstances a solicitor would ensure that they had fastidiously checked their contractual position and acted with complete transparency to all parties throughout.”
In deciding to strike her off, the SDT said: “The period when the respondent was undertaking simultaneous employment was understood to be an extremely busy period for the conveyancing industry following the lifting of restrictions implemented during the Covid pandemic.
“The respondent was capitalising on this by actively seeking further employment whilst already permanently employed.”
Her actions damaged the profession’s reputation “and the level of harm was high”, it concluded.
Ms Sarkodie was struck off and ordered to pay costs of £8,900.
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