An assistant solicitor - Ms Susan Orton - who missed a hearing at an Employment Tribunal, has not been struck off from practising law.
Ms Orton qualified in March 2016. In August 2018 - as a solicitor employed by BPE Solicitors, a Cheltenham firm - she received a telephone call from an Employment Tribunal asking why there had not been an attendance at the Tribunal for one of her cases.
As a result of this call, Ms Orton looked for- and found - a notification of hearing document, two copies of which she put into waste bins in the office. She denied having seen them to her employers.
However, after being seen to do this by a secretary who reported the matter, the copy notifications were later found in the bins by her supervisor and the head of HR.
Ms Orton was dismissed the following day.
At the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, she was cleared of dishonesty over this act - but it was found that she committed a dishonest act in misleading the Employment Tribunal when she denied having seen notification of the hearing.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal stated that they could not be sure that Ms Orton - who had subsequently been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum - was aware of what she was doing at the time.
The QC representing Ms Orton stated that she had a fear of making mistakes and put forward that this was an ‘aberration’ in her otherwise unblemished career.
He stated:
“The nature of this dishonesty was a rabbit in the headlights by a lady suffering a serious illness that she had no idea she was suffering from. She is a very positive member of society and a lady of high intelligence with a great deal to offer. She can have some kind of future in the law and in the right environment does not present a risk.”
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal made the unusual decision not to strike off Ms Orton and found that exceptional circumstances had added to her conduct. She was suspended for six months, with the Tribunal stating that she would have received a two and a half years suspension apart from the fact that her time out of work since the incident has accounted for two years.
When she returns to work, she will be subject to several conditions on her practising certificate and will be required to undergo regular health checks.
Ms Orton was also ordered to pay £20,000 costs.
The Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) has welcomed the decision not to strike Ms Orton after the Tribunal found that her mental ill-health represented exceptional circumstances which warranted a suspension instead.
The JLD group commented:
“The JLD hopes the SDT (Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal) continues to be as conscious of the significant impact of such issues in future determinations, and that the SRA (Solicitors Regulation Authority) takes note of the Orton outcome when considering whether to prosecute other junior lawyers in similar circumstances in the future.”
