A solicitor who, in a ‘momentary lapse of judgment’, created and backdated a letter as a response to the pressure experienced from her colleague checking up on her work may continue in practice, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has ruled. Niranjana Patel, admitted in 2004, was suspended from practice for a year, suspended for two years.
Patel, an associate at Jackson Lees Group, was the fee earner in respect of a matter involving 'client K' in claims against a landlord. Following inquiries from a colleague, Patel, 52, created and backdated a letter to K’s landlord to make it appear as if work had been completed on the client file when no such work had been done.
When asked by her firm about the whereabouts of the letter, Patel ‘admitted that she had been mistaken about the date that the letter had been sent’. She was dismissed for gross misconduct in March 2024.
In judgment the SDT said it believed Patel’s conduct 'to have been motivated by a desire to avoid further criticism from a colleague repeatedly demanding to be furnished with an immediate update as to what work had been done'. On the balance of probabilities, it found Patel 'had manually changed the date on the document to make it appear as if she had been working on the document on that date in circumstances where she had not'.
Read more
Considering Patel’s mitigation, the tribunal said: ‘At the relevant time, the respondent had been struggling with the volume of work within the firm and the day before the misconduct had a very challenging work schedule resulting in her working till late in the evening'.
The tribunal found Patel, who had an ‘unblemished and exemplary professional and regulatory history’ had been dishonest and directly responsible for her actions. However 'the act of dishonesty was an isolated incident as it had not been elaborately pre-planned’. It had ‘very little impact on the client’ though ‘it was nonetheless capable of affecting the reputation of the profession.’
The benefit to Patel of backdating the letter was ‘very marginal and would have involved no more than the respondent being relieved of the pressure of further email enquiries’.
Suspending Patel from practice, the tribunal described her misconduct as 'a response to the pressure experienced from her colleague’s enquiries. The action of creating and backdating the document lasted a very short period of time and was in effect a momentary lapse of judgment in an otherwise unblemished legal career.’
Patel’s 12-month suspension from practice as a solicitor, commencing on 29 August 2024, was suspended for a period of two years. She was also ordered to pay £10,000 costs.
