A solicitor who did not tell her client, their insurer, or her firm that her client’s defence and counterclaim had been struck out has been suspended for a year.
Samantha Jayne Dyson admitted all three allegations against her that while she was a solicitor at national firm Plexus Legal LLP she caused or allowed a witness statement which contained her signed statement of truth to be filed with the court when she knew an assertion within it was misleading.
She also failed to tell her client, a council, its insurer and the firm that the client’s defence and counterclaim had been struck out for failing to comply with an unless order and that an adverse costs order had been made against the insurer.
Dyson, admitted in September 2018, was working in the litigation department in the public sector team of Plexus Legal. She left the firm in 2022, does not have a current practising certificate and is not employed by a solicitors’ firm.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal accepted the agreed outcome of suspending Dyson was ‘required to maintain the public confidence in the profession and to send a deterrent message to solicitors who found themselves in a similar predicament’.
It acknowledged that Dyson was ‘relatively inexperienced’ as a solicitor and had ‘expressed deep regret for her misconduct’.
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The judgment said: ‘Confusion had, to some extent, been caused by administrative errors that [Dyson] was not responsible for and this had played some role in her conduct.’
Finding a strike off was not justified and a 12-month suspension was needed to ‘protect the public and the reputation of the legal professional’, the judgment added: ‘The tribunal concluded that the sanction proposed by the SRA and the respondent appropriately reflected the seriousness of the misconduct and was required in the public interest.’
As well as the 12-month suspension, Dyson was ordered to pay £2,469.17 costs.
