Solicitor struck off after misleading client and firm during matrimonial proceedings
Solicitor Kathryn Poole has been struck off the Roll of Solicitors after the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) found she acted dishonestly by misleading both a client and her firm during a family law case.
Poole, who was admitted as a solicitor on 3 September 2007, had been working as a consultant solicitor under an agreement dated 20 January 2021. Her consultancy with the firm ended on 12 August 2021, following concerns about her professional conduct.
The case arose from Poole’s handling of a matrimonial matter in which she represented Client A. As part of ongoing financial proceedings, she was required to submit full details of the client’s property, income, and pension holdings to the court ahead of a hearing scheduled for 11 June 2021.
According to the Tribunal’s findings, Poole failed to submit the necessary pension information on time and then falsely claimed that the delay was due to the pension provider. In reality, no request for the pension details had ever been made.
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The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) said Poole subsequently misled both her client and her firm, attributing the missing paperwork to external delays. The court later imposed a Penal Notice and an adverse costs order of £250 against Client A after the continued failure to comply with disclosure requirements.
Poole then failed to notify her client or the firm about the Penal Notice and the costs order, leaving Client A unaware of the legal and financial consequences.
The failings came to light following an internal review by the firm, which identified serious professional misconduct and referred the matter to the SRA for investigation.
Following a full inquiry, the SRA advanced allegations that Poole had:
- Misled her client and firm by stating that pension information was awaited when no such request had been made.
- Failed to inform her client and firm promptly that a Penal Notice had been issued and that a costs order had been made.
At the hearing, the Tribunal found Allegation 1.1, which included dishonesty, and Allegation 1.3 proved. The SDT concluded that Poole’s conduct was deliberate and misleading, amounting to a serious breach of the SRA Principles 2019 and the Code of Conduct for Solicitors, RELs and RFLs 2019.
In its judgment, the Tribunal emphasised that Poole’s actions had undermined both the integrity of the profession and the trust of her client, leaving no alternative to a strike-off.
“The Respondent’s conduct demonstrated a lack of honesty and integrity incompatible with continuing to practise as a solicitor,” the Tribunal said in its ruling.
The Tribunal found that Poole’s false representations had not only caused potential harm to her client but also jeopardised the standing of her firm, which had been unaware of the court’s adverse orders.
The SRA submitted that the misconduct involved serious breaches of trust, a lack of candour, and an attempt to conceal professional failings through deception. The Tribunal agreed, finding her behaviour fundamentally inconsistent with the standards expected of solicitors.
As a result, the SDT ordered that Kathryn Poole be struck off the Roll of Solicitors, meaning she is no longer permitted to practise law in England and Wales.
The decision serves as another reminder of the SRA’s strict stance on dishonesty and client deception within the legal profession. Under the SRA Principles 2019, solicitors are required to act with honesty, integrity, and transparency — failings that the Tribunal found wholly absent in Poole’s case.
The SRA confirmed the sanction in its published summary, stating that the strike-off was “necessary and proportionate to protect the public and uphold confidence in the profession.”