Kira May Ann
Walker
Employee
668683
Decision - Employee-related decision
Outcome: Control of non-qualified staff (Section 43 / Section 99 order)
Outcome date: 29 July 2020
Published date: 20 September 2020
Firm details
Firm or organisation at time of matters giving rise to outcome
Name: Walkers & Partners Ltd
Address(es): 37 Grosvenor Road, St Paul’s, Bristol, BS2 8XQ
Firm ID: 619743
Outcome details
This outcome was reached by SRA decision.
Decision details
To make a section 43 order that with effect from the date of the letter or email notifying Kira Walker 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 the SRA’s permission.
Kira Walker is also ordered to pay the sum of £600 in relation to the SRA’s costs of investigating this matter.
Reasons/basis
Between September 2018 and July 2019 Walkers & Partners Ltd of 37 Grosvenor Road, Bristol, BS2 8XQ, employed Kira Walker. She worked at the firm as Practice Manager/Accounts manager. The firm suspended her in July 2019 for gross misconduct, thereafter she resigned. This followed the firm’s finding that she had transferred £170,700 from the firm’s office account to her own personal bank account without authorisation, causing a shortage to the office account.
An order pursuant to section 43(2) of the Solicitors Act 1974 was made in relation to Kira Walker and she was ordered to pay the SRA’s costs of £600 for the investigation into this matter.
Kira Walker, who is not a solicitor, was involved in a legal practice and has occasioned or been a party to an act or default which involved such conduct on her part that it is undesirable for her to be involved in legal practice on any of the ways described in the decision above, without the SRA’s prior written consent.
Other information
Kira Walker is ordered to pay the sum of £600 in relation to the SRA’s costs of investigating this matter.