Medical report: Legal executive fabricated documents
A chartered legal executive who fabricated court pleadings, expert reports and letters from third parties has been disqualified from working for solicitors’ firms.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) imposed the ban on Claire Sadler, who worked in the personal injury department at London firm Hodge Jones & Allen.
The issues came to light during a review of Ms Sadler’s files while she was on annual leave in early 2023. She was initially suspended and three days later resigned with immediate effect. The firm reported her to the regulator.
In a notice published last week, the SRA highlighted four of the 32 cases where there were concerns, which included false entries on the firm’s case management system (CMS).
In the first, Ms Sadler fabricated a letter and medical report purportedly from a medico-legal company, and falsely recorded on the CMS that they had been received when they were not.
In the second, she fabricated a letter purportedly from the defendant admitting liability, uploading it onto the CMS and informing the client about it. She also put an entry on the CMS that indicated she had sent letters to the client’s GP, when she had not.
In the third matter, Ms Sadler fabricated an email purportedly sent by the defendant’s insurers and saved it on the CMS.
She also produced an attendance note recording that a defence had been received from the respondent’s purported solicitors, where this firm had not actually been instructed and there was no such defence.
Further, she falsely put on the CMS that court proceedings had been posted to the firm.
In the final matter, Ms Sadler said she had sent a letter to a witness – in which she referred to having previously sent a witness statement – where there was no record of her sending any correspondence.
Finally, she fabricated a witness statement purportedly signed by the witness and then disclosed it to the defendant.
The notice included no explanation for why Ms Sadler acted as she did, nor any mitigation she may have put forward.
The SRA concluded that she had been dishonest and that it would be “undesirable” for her to hold a role at a law firm it regulated in future.
It also directed her to pay costs of £3,375.
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