A paralegal complained to her manager about her workload before she made the mistake that ended her legal career, according to a regulatory decision notice.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority issued Lydia Cleary with a notice barring her from working in the legal profession after she created attendance notes on a client file. These notes suggested she had made telephone calls that in fact she had not made.
Cleary had worked at Bristol firm DAS Law since 2020 and had initially been based in the personal injury department. She stated on her LinkedIn profile that she managed her own caseload of around 240 cases for claimants involved in road traffic accidents worth up to £25,000 on the whiplash portal.
She was moved to the contract law and litigation dispute management department in 2023, shortly after the false attendance notes were discovered.
The SRA noted in mitigation that no client had suffered any loss from what Cleary did, and at the time she had raised concerns about her workload with her immediate supervisor.
But the regulator said Cleary’s conduct was serious because it was dishonest and showed a lack of integrity. The notes gave the misleading impression that Ms Cleary had worked on the file, which allowed Ms Cleary to move the file from her inactive list.
DAS Law declined to comment.
Cleary was given a section 43 order, preventing her from working for any firm without SRA permission, and ordered to pay a proportion of the regulator’s £600 costs.
