Dawn
Plant
Employee
545612
Decision - Employee-related decision
Outcome: Control of non-qualified staff (Section 43 / Section 99 order)
Outcome date: 29 June 2017
Published date: 19 December 2017
Firm details
Firm or organisation at time of matters giving rise to outcome
Name: Pinkney Grunwells Lawyers LLP
Address(es): 64 Westborough, Scarborough, North Yorks, YO11 1TS
Firm ID: 465469
Outcome details
This outcome was reached by SRA decision.
Decision details
In the matter of Dawn Plant
A person who is or was involved in legal practice but is not a solicitor.
Section 43 Solicitors Act 1974 (As amended)
Dawn Plant, a chartered legal executive, amended three client wills while employed as a legal executive by Pinkney Grunwells Lawyers LLP. The amendments made her a beneficiary under each will. Ms Plant failed to ensure each client took independent legal advice before she amended the wills and became a beneficiary.
Finding
Dawn Plant who is or was involved in a legal practice (as defined by section 43(1A) of the Solicitors Act 1974) but is not a solicitor, has occasioned or been a party to, with or without the connivance of a solicitor, an act or default in relation to a legal practice which involved conduct on her part of such a nature that in the opinion of the Society it would be undesirable for her to be involved in a legal practice in all of the ways set out below.
Order
To make a section 43 order to take effect 28 days from the date of the letter or email notifying Dawn Plant of this decision:
- no solicitor shall employ or remunerate her in connection with his/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 a Society permission.
This Order is subject to a statutory right of review to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.