Katie Nakaidze

Decision - Employee-related decision

Outcome: Control of non-qualified staff (Section 43 / Section 99 order)

Outcome date: 30 January 2024

Published date: 8 February 2024

Firm details

Firm or organisation at time of matters giving rise to outcome

Name: Pinset Masons LLP

Address(es): 30 Crown Place, London, EC2A 4ES.

Firm ID: 471972

Outcome details

This outcome was reached by SRA decision.

Decision details

Who does this decision relate to? 

Ketevan (or Katie) Nakaidze whose last known address was in Hove, Sussex.

A person who is or was involved in a legal practice but is not a solicitor.

Summary of decision

The SRA has put restrictions on where and how Ms Nakaidze can work in an SRA regulated firm. It was found that Ms Nakaidze had from December 2021 to August 2022, on five occasions, dishonestly misled her employer into believing she either would be or (after March 2022) was a newly qualified solicitor who was waiting for her practising certificate to be issued, when she was not.

The facts of the case

Between April 2022 and 1 August 2022, Ms Nakaidze was employed by the Finance & Projects Group of Pinsent Masons LLP (the firm).

We found that between December 2021 (when she applied for the role she took up in April 2022), and 11 August 2022, when her employment ceased, Ms Nakaidze repeatedly let her employer believe that she was due to qualify as a solicitor in March 2022 and/or had applied for a practising certificate when this was not true.

We found that her conduct was dishonest.

Decision on outcome

An order pursuant to section 43(2) of the Solicitors Act 1974 was imposed because Ms Nakaidze's conduct meant that it was undesirable for her to be involved in a legal practice without the SRA's prior approval.

Ms Nakaidze's conduct was serious because she repeatedly and dishonestly told her employer, or allowed her employer to believe, she would be (or was, as the case may be) from March 2022, a newly qualified solicitor and had applied for a practising certificate when this was not true.   

Ms Nakaidze was also ordered to pay the SRA's costs of £600.

What our Section 43 order means

• no solicitor shall employ or remunerate her in connection with her practice as a solicitor;
• no employee of a solicitor shall employ or remunerate her in connection with the solicitor's practice;
• no recognised body shall employ or remunerate her;
• no manager or employee of a recognised body shall employ or remunerate her in connection with the business of that body;
• no recognised body or manager or employee of such a body shall permit her to be a manager of the body; and
• no recognised body or manager or employee of such a body shall permit her to have an interest in the body

except in accordance with the SRA's permission.