Solicitor Jane Stark was suspended for six months and fined £13,800 after a dishonest email was exposed.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has suspended solicitor Jane Stark for six months after she admitted sending a dishonest and misleading email while working at North Ainley Solicitors. In addition to the suspension, she has been ordered to pay costs of £13,800 and will face indefinite restrictions on her future practice.
The misconduct took place on 17 September 2020, when Stark, who had been suspended from her firm pending a disciplinary hearing, contacted solicitors acting for the other party in a property refinancing matter. Using her personal email, she falsely claimed she was experiencing server issues with her work account and invited them to liaise with her directly. In the same message, she asked for financing documents to be sent to her for client signing, despite having been expressly barred by her firm from contacting clients, introducers, or staff.
In reality, Stark’s access to the firm’s systems had been revoked two days earlier when she was formally suspended. The firm quickly became aware of her actions after being contacted by the opposing solicitors. That same day, it wrote to Stark reminding her that she was not permitted to correspond with third parties while suspended. Stark replied by insisting she had only acted to prevent a client’s loan completion from failing, acknowledging that she should not have sent the email and promising not to send any more.
Embed from Getty ImagesA disciplinary hearing at her firm followed on 21 September 2020. She admitted that, in hindsight, her decision to send the email had been wrong. The firm summarily dismissed her the following day and referred the matter to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).
The SDT considered Stark’s misconduct to involve dishonesty, one of the most serious forms of professional breach. Ordinarily, a solicitor found to have acted dishonestly is struck off the Roll. However, in this case the tribunal accepted there were exceptional circumstances which made striking off disproportionate. Medical evidence about Stark’s mental health at the time of the incident was presented, and the panel accepted that her dishonesty had been a “moment of madness” in an otherwise unblemished career.
The tribunal noted Stark’s immediate admissions, her cooperation with both her firm and the SRA, and the fact that the dishonesty was confined to a single short email. She had no prior regulatory history and did not stand to gain financially from her actions. Instead, she said she acted out of concern that the client’s urgent transaction might collapse if she did not intervene.
Nonetheless, the SDT stressed that harm had been caused to the reputation of the profession, since the public expects solicitors to demonstrate honesty at all times. The panel concluded that only a period of suspension, followed by strict restrictions, would adequately reflect the seriousness of her actions and protect the public.
Stark will now be unable to practise for six months from 21 March 2023. Once the suspension ends, she will remain subject to indefinite conditions, including bans on acting as a manager, owner, compliance officer or freelance solicitor. She may only work as an employed solicitor with roles pre-approved by the SRA, and must manage her professional commitments in line with medical advice.
The tribunal made clear that dishonesty by a solicitor almost always leads to being struck off, but that Stark’s case fell into the rare category where a lesser penalty was justified. Even so, the ruling underscores the devastating consequences a single act of dishonesty can have on a solicitor’s career.