Calls: Call logs did not back up attendance notes
A paralegal who did not make the dozens of phone calls he recorded in attendance notes has been disqualified from working in the profession.
Connor Johnson also reallocated his files to colleagues without telling them.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) made Mr Johnson subject to a disqualification order under section 99 of the Legal Services Act 2007 because the firm where he worked, Cardiff-based NewLaw Legal, is an alternative business structure (ABS).
These control orders are different from section 43 orders made under the Solicitors Act 1974 for those working at traditional law firms; the subject of a section 43 order can continue working for an SRA-regulated firm with its permission.
An SRA notice said Mr Johnson was a case manager at NewLaw from May 2018 to October 2022, with a caseload of claimant personal injury files.
An audit identified that calls he recorded on its case management system did not match the firm’s call logs.
According to the attendance notes generated in August 2022, he made 111 outbound calls; the call logs only found nine.
Meanwhile, one file contained a witness statement prepared by another employee and filed at court in support of an application to come off the record due to lack of instructions from the client. This listed 76 actions to contact the client, including 36 unanswered calls from Mr Johnson over five months in 2022.
However, the call logs only showed one and the firm filed a corrective witness statement stating that it believed the 36 calls were not made.
“Mr Johnson made the conscious and deliberate decision to generate false attendance notes, across a number of files, over a prolonged period of time,” the SRA said.
Meanwhile, in two months in summer 2022, Mr Johnson rapidly re-allocated 16 files to other case managers in his team without their knowledge – he did this within four minutes of one being allocated to him.
“Notably, on 12 September 2022, Mr Johnson transferred a case file that had been allocated to him to a colleague and manually postponed the task which informs file handlers of their new allocation, so that it would appear in the task list the following morning.
The SRA said the evidence indicated that Mr Johnson “may have taken steps to try and conceal his conduct by postponing allocation tasks, to make it appear that he had not re-allocated the file”.
Mr Johnson admitted what he had done and that he should be made subject to the orders.
The SRA said: “The dishonest nature of his conduct means that it would be undesirable for Mr Johnson to work at a licensed body [an ABS] or an authorised body [a traditional law firm]…
“The public is entitled to expect that robust action is taken to uphold the standards of the legal profession.”
The regulator took into account that Mr Johnson has shown remorse, fully co-operated and “provided personal mitigation regarding his health at the material time”.
Mr Johnson also agreed to pay costs of £300.
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