"anyone know what she was like in a work environment?"
Not very busy
"Sheehan told Hill Dickinson in 2017 that she billed £1.4m in one year at Dentons. In reality, the tribunal heard, she billed just £177,000 during her two-year stint at the firm."
Yeah I got all of that but what puzzles me is why the firms concerned didn't put the feelers out / sound out what she was really like rather than only rely on her "work of fiction"...
I have some difficulty with this being entirely her wrong. Dishonest, I guess, so no good in the profession but where is the line exactly? If people's "value of following" puff was put to scrutiny in the way this says it should be, how do we measure performance? Origination only? Hours worked? Bills sent out? Bills actually paid? How do we distinguish between wining the work and doing the work. I am not sure this makes much difference with this woman who was clearly just in la la land but articulation of the principles in play here is required from the SRA for more marginal cases.
Her approach to evaluation of her practice by what she "would have billed" is absurd and the dishonest inflation is not on but Hill DIckinson's dopey failure to due diligence the claims is shit... one call is all it takes to find out if someone is a goody or a baddie. If she is that bone idle then someone will have an opinion on this.
You give contacts for a reference which waives confidentiality
Do you have a right to confidentiality in respect of a lie in these circumstances? What is your cause of action - in tort for breach of confidence? Then there is an ex turpi causa defence, at a stretch, or a misrepresentation counterclaim in excess of the claim.
"Tracey worked here and filled in some time sheets between 2015 and 2017".
yes, it's going to get Spring v Guardianed into irrelevance. The effect of this will be standardisation of a no fault termination right in partnership deeds where if they find something they don't like or you disappoint on integration, boom out you go. That happens a lot already but it will become standard.
The kicker here is the blatant lies around what had been billed. Everyone knows that the following figures have a touch of aspiration and massaging about them because they can't be tested until after the move.
It takes a lot of "massaging" to turn a £3k bill into a £220k bill and is just untrue. Whilst there is always going to be some argument about how much of a bill is attributable to a particular partner's efforts, saying a client was sent a bill of £220k when they weren't is punchy at best.
The whole partner move thing is a minefield of 'accepted practice' in terms of disclosure of confidential information belonging to the firm the partner is leaving and yeah the 'optimistic' billing figures. For most people it wouldn't be possible to move firms while remaining strictly in compliance with the partnership deed of the place they are leaving I suspect.
The concept of a 'portable practice' itself is weird in the context of the restrictive covenants that UK firms tend to impose. The whole thing is a mess. This is one thing the yank firms have a much better grip on. A month or two notice at most either way. No restrictive covenants. Be honest about what that means in terms of what can be achieved realistically in terms of a 'culture of collaboration' in the firm.
I had an offer from a US firm a few years back. In addition to talking about billings etc, they wanted a list of every matter I'd worked on for every client, pretty much forever, for "conflict checking".
I told them I'd need client consent to disclose; I asked one of my main clients if I could. Response came back from their compliance department that giving consent would breach banking secrecy laws they were bound by.
The firm couldn't get its head around this. The idea that client confidentiality should be absolute came as a complete surprise to them.
Pretty much, Clive. It was a stalemate. The firm insisted on a comprehensive deal list, whereas I had an apparently rather quaint and uncommercial approach to my duties to the client.
The client who couldn't give me the waiver was a big part of my business case. I wasn't going to make my first action breaching their confidence, when they'd expressly told me not to. Client's boss's boss even offered to speak to the firm on my behalf.
That's nuts. How far back did they want to go? As leaving aside confidentiality issues going more than say 3 years you might forget stuff especially the smaller deals / clients?
Can't remember but it was a while. 5+ years maybe.
The amazing thing was that they were surprised that I even had an issue with it.
And the suggested solution was I them all the info on a call. Because you know, right - if you don't disclose client information in writing, you're not really disclosing it I guess.
US shops are big on checking conflicts on partner moves - they usually have long no-deal and no-sue lists that they need to manage.
Also - totally normal to share aggregated origination and billing stats. Individual matters for 5 years sounds very odd.
Sounds like Tracey was a straight fraudster though I remember a recruiter suggesting I inflate future billings by 25% as that would be what the new firm would discount from our ‘aspirational figures’. Glad I ignored him.
Relax you’re going to heaven, I’m just flagging this is the type of thing they ask for, bloody yanks.
Every firm has a few laterals that turn up, don’t produce the goods then quietly shuffle off - the speed at which they are identified and turfed out is what good management is about.
It's not really clear from the reporting I've seen. But if she said she "billed" £1.4m in one year but actually "billed" £177k over 2 years, whether its her individual or team billings from work she brought in, you have to assume the figures compare apples and apples.
They might not be, in which case the articles might be exaggerating the lie, but I also assume that at the hearing itself they looked at the like-for-like figures, I suspect for both team and individual billings, and concluded they were a substantial fabrication.
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City partner struck off for inflating billing figures | News | Law Gazette
Adieu dear Tracy.
A career in legal fiction awaits...
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"anyone know what she was like in a work environment?"
Not very busy
"Sheehan told Hill Dickinson in 2017 that she billed £1.4m in one year at Dentons. In reality, the tribunal heard, she billed just £177,000 during her two-year stint at the firm."
177k.
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over two years.
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... Did they really order her to pay £ 51,615, or was actually £ 146.32?
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Muttley
over two years.
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She must have been chained to her desk. What a workaholic.
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Yeah I got all of that but what puzzles me is why the firms concerned didn't put the feelers out / sound out what she was really like rather than only rely on her "work of fiction"...
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Have Dentons sued her for their £600k?
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I have some difficulty with this being entirely her wrong. Dishonest, I guess, so no good in the profession but where is the line exactly? If people's "value of following" puff was put to scrutiny in the way this says it should be, how do we measure performance? Origination only? Hours worked? Bills sent out? Bills actually paid? How do we distinguish between wining the work and doing the work. I am not sure this makes much difference with this woman who was clearly just in la la land but articulation of the principles in play here is required from the SRA for more marginal cases.
Her approach to evaluation of her practice by what she "would have billed" is absurd and the dishonest inflation is not on but Hill DIckinson's dopey failure to due diligence the claims is shit... one call is all it takes to find out if someone is a goody or a baddie. If she is that bone idle then someone will have an opinion on this.
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Who are you supposed to call to find this out without breaching her right to confidentiality? Or is that irrelevant?
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You give contacts for a reference which waives confidentiality
Do you have a right to confidentiality in respect of a lie in these circumstances? What is your cause of action - in tort for breach of confidence? Then there is an ex turpi causa defence, at a stretch, or a misrepresentation counterclaim in excess of the claim.
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Billing figures will go the way of the personal reference now,
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"Tracey worked here and filled in some time sheets between 2015 and 2017".
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Carbolic smoke ball isn’t it
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Kind of shows up all the "it's a small world" bilge pumped around on here as the bollocks that it is.
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AmItheSucker11 Jun 21 16:09
Reply | Report
Billing figures will go the way of the personal reference now,
AmItheSucker11 Jun 21 16:09
Reply | Report
"Tracey worked here and filled in some time sheets between 2015 and 2017".
yes, it's going to get Spring v Guardianed into irrelevance. The effect of this will be standardisation of a no fault termination right in partnership deeds where if they find something they don't like or you disappoint on integration, boom out you go. That happens a lot already but it will become standard.
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The billing figures were provided by her and not the former employer - no equivalence to Spring v Guardian.
Don't see why they will become otiose - it just requires honesty from the Applicant to provide true figures.
Indeed, after this case far more reliance will be put on them, seeing as the sanction for applicants fibbing has been made clear by the SDT.
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if you're struck off and don't appeal, are you allowed to seek readmission at some point?
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Yep, but you would need to prove a huge amount of redemptive work over a very long period of time (15+ years) before you even got a chance to.
Unless she wins an appeal, which seems highly unlikely, TBH her career as a Solicitor is now over.
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There are shades of grey in this sort of area.
Not this case though. Lied through her teeth. More than once. And not under any sort of duress, plain and simple personal gain.
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The kicker here is the blatant lies around what had been billed. Everyone knows that the following figures have a touch of aspiration and massaging about them because they can't be tested until after the move.
It takes a lot of "massaging" to turn a £3k bill into a £220k bill and is just untrue. Whilst there is always going to be some argument about how much of a bill is attributable to a particular partner's efforts, saying a client was sent a bill of £220k when they weren't is punchy at best.
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Heh at £177k over 2 years
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and how much did she draw from the business against that?
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Oh look there's a picture of her: https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/19999406
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I haven't encountered "ex turpi causa" since I was at university. I had to look it up.
Anyway, she's clearly a wrong'un.
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The whole partner move thing is a minefield of 'accepted practice' in terms of disclosure of confidential information belonging to the firm the partner is leaving and yeah the 'optimistic' billing figures. For most people it wouldn't be possible to move firms while remaining strictly in compliance with the partnership deed of the place they are leaving I suspect.
The concept of a 'portable practice' itself is weird in the context of the restrictive covenants that UK firms tend to impose. The whole thing is a mess. This is one thing the yank firms have a much better grip on. A month or two notice at most either way. No restrictive covenants. Be honest about what that means in terms of what can be achieved realistically in terms of a 'culture of collaboration' in the firm.
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I had an offer from a US firm a few years back. In addition to talking about billings etc, they wanted a list of every matter I'd worked on for every client, pretty much forever, for "conflict checking".
I told them I'd need client consent to disclose; I asked one of my main clients if I could. Response came back from their compliance department that giving consent would breach banking secrecy laws they were bound by.
The firm couldn't get its head around this. The idea that client confidentiality should be absolute came as a complete surprise to them.
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Coffee did you decline because of that?
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Pretty much, Clive. It was a stalemate. The firm insisted on a comprehensive deal list, whereas I had an apparently rather quaint and uncommercial approach to my duties to the client.
The client who couldn't give me the waiver was a big part of my business case. I wasn't going to make my first action breaching their confidence, when they'd expressly told me not to. Client's boss's boss even offered to speak to the firm on my behalf.
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That's nuts. How far back did they want to go? As leaving aside confidentiality issues going more than say 3 years you might forget stuff especially the smaller deals / clients?
Also anything pre partner as well.
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Can't remember but it was a while. 5+ years maybe.
The amazing thing was that they were surprised that I even had an issue with it.
And the suggested solution was I them all the info on a call. Because you know, right - if you don't disclose client information in writing, you're not really disclosing it I guess.
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"But won't you be worried about my lack of integrity?"
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US shops are big on checking conflicts on partner moves - they usually have long no-deal and no-sue lists that they need to manage.
Also - totally normal to share aggregated origination and billing stats. Individual matters for 5 years sounds very odd.
Sounds like Tracey was a straight fraudster though I remember a recruiter suggesting I inflate future billings by 25% as that would be what the new firm would discount from our ‘aspirational figures’. Glad I ignored him.
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Surely the firm could say 'we can't employ you if you are conflicted against these people:
X
Y
Z'
And you could confirm yes or no. That said, is it likely to be a conflict? Can put information barriers etc
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Being "big on checking conflicts" does not take precedence over Rule 6.3 of the Solicitors' Code of Conduct.
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Relax you’re going to heaven, I’m just flagging this is the type of thing they ask for, bloody yanks.
Every firm has a few laterals that turn up, don’t produce the goods then quietly shuffle off - the speed at which they are identified and turfed out is what good management is about.
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177K over 2 years? fvck me that makes me look like a heroic billing machine
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We all felt blessed by that disclosure
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Was that her total time recorded and charged for, or just the work she brought in, with her time on top somewhere else?
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It's not really clear from the reporting I've seen. But if she said she "billed" £1.4m in one year but actually "billed" £177k over 2 years, whether its her individual or team billings from work she brought in, you have to assume the figures compare apples and apples.
They might not be, in which case the articles might be exaggerating the lie, but I also assume that at the hearing itself they looked at the like-for-like figures, I suspect for both team and individual billings, and concluded they were a substantial fabrication.
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This story actually made it into the Times business section last weekend.
Maybe she should have claimed Dyscalculia
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There must be hundreds of laterals bricking it
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