Managing partner asked junior to lie in client email

A managing partner who instructed a junior colleague to send an amended email to a client containing misleading information has been suspended for nine months.

Rajpal Panesar was a managing partner in the property department at Taylor Rose TTKW and the supervisor of a junior colleague, named as Person A in the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal judgment. Person A had been admitted to the roll only three weeks before the incident.

Panesar was alleged to have instructed Person A to send an email to a client he was acting for on a conveyancing matter, which was misleading. Panesar had amended Person A’s email and instructed her to send the email to the client ‘with the specific intention to mislead the client’ about when a report had been posted. She ‘refused to do so’ and the email was not sent.

Panesar, a solicitor for 20 years, admitted the allegation but denied he had ‘instructed’ Person A to send the email. He claimed he had ‘asked’ Person A to do so, that the email was a draft, and ‘open for discussion’.

The tribunal found the allegation proved in its entirety.

It said: ‘Mr Panesar accepted that the substance of the email was misleading and that it was intended to mislead. The tribunal accepted that position as an admission, properly made by Mr Panesar who had the benefit of legal representation. Mr Panesar diminished the trust and confidence that the public places in solicitors. Mr Panesar also diminished the trust and confidence that junior colleagues place in senior solicitors who supervise them.’

The judgment said Panesar ‘had acted dishonestly’ and Person A was ‘affected’ by Panesar’s conduct.

It added: ‘Being asked to lie at an early stage in her career has clearly shaken her faith in the profession. A solicitor acting with integrity would not have attempted to persuade a junior colleague to mislead a client to cover up for an earlier error.’

In considering exceptional circumstances, the tribunal said ‘the working conditions of Mr Panesar, his lack of support and the evidence relating to his mental health’ had ‘limited weight’.

‘More persuasive…was the fact that the dishonesty was between Mr Panesar and Person A only, lasted for a 90-minute period, was not premeditated, was not continued in that the offending email was not in fact sent to Client A, and did not prejudice the underlying transaction,’ it added.

Imposing a nine-month suspension, which began in August, the tribunal said it accepted Panesar’s ‘exceptional circumstances existed’ and a suspension from practice was ‘appropriate’ to reflect his ‘remorse, admissions and the three years taken to bring this matter to the tribunal during which Mr Panesar was issued with a practising certificate free from conditions’.

Panesar was also ordered to pay £14,000 costs.