A chartered legal executive, Claire Sadler, has been barred from the legal profession after being found guilty of fabricating documents. This includes a medical report, a witness statement, and a letter falsely claiming a defendant’s admission of liability in a case she was handling.
Hodge Jones & Allen (HJA), a personal injury law firm, initiated an investigation into Sadler’s conduct while she was on annual leave due to suspicions of dishonesty. This dishonesty pertained to both documents and entries on the firm’s case management system (CMS). Claire Sadler resigned from her position three days after the investigation began.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) identified misconduct by Sadler in four separate client matters. In the first case, Sadler was accused of fabricating a letter and a medical report, allegedly from a medico-legal company, and falsely recording these documents in the firm’s CMS.
In a second matter, the SRA discovered that Sadler uploaded a non-genuine letter to the CMS, which purported to be from a defendant admitting liability in a claim. She then informed her client about this letter and falsely recorded in the CMS that she had requested medical records from the client’s GP.
A third matter highlighted by the SRA involved Sadler recording false information in an attendance note on the CMS, claiming that a defense had been received from a respondent’s solicitors, even though the firm had not been instructed on the matter and no defense had been filed. Sadler also falsely recorded that court proceedings had been posted to the firm when it had not been instructed to do so.
In the fourth matter, Sadler fabricated a witness statement based on unapproved and unsigned correspondence and disclosed it to a defendant. The SRA’s decision did not provide any explanation or mitigation for Sadler’s actions.
The SRA stated that Sadler breached relevant duties. As she was not a solicitor, she could not be struck off, but she has been barred from being employed by any law firm. Sadler was also ordered to pay £3,375 in costs.
