By John Hyde2020-12-14T11:07:00+00:00
A solicitor who was dishonest about her disciplinary record when she joined her new firm has been struck off the roll.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal heard that Catherine Jane Limbert (also known as Williamson) had been under investigation by the SRA for more than six months when she completed a new employee questionnaire upon joining Brighton firm Cognitive Law in March 2016.
Asked specifically whether she had been the subject of any investigation by her regulator – for consideration by the firm’s indemnity insurers – she answered ‘no’. She knew this answer to be untrue, having sent a partial copy of a file to the SRA as recently as two days previously. Limbert, a solicitor since 1995, ultimately entered a regulatory settlement agreement over the ongoing matter with the SRA in June 2016.
By John Hyde2020-12-11T11:28:00+00:00
A Yorkshire solicitor has agreed his removal from the roll after admitting to mistakenly transferring £47,000 of client money to the office account.
Edward Bromet, 51, insisted his actions were not intended to be dishonest, but he admitted misconduct on the eve of a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal hearing and instead agreed with the Solicitors Regulation Authority he should be struck off.
The money, split over two groups of transfers, was disbursed between employees of his firm Bromets Solicitors Limited, unsecured creditors and to Bromet himself. Bromet, admitted in 1996, explained that the first payments were made on the basis they were loans from a trust, of which he was co-trustee. In mitigation, not agreed by the SRA, Bromet said he understood that his actions were within the wide-ranging powers of investment he had as a trustee, with nothing lost by the client.