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A solicitor has been struck off the roll for lying to clients, her firm and the court.

Amanda Lennon, admitted as a solicitor in 2010, worked at Ascent Performance Group, a debt recovery arm of Irwin Mitchell.  

In January 2020, Lennon was working for a claimant client in a litigation matter. She misled the court, by saying that an advocate who was booked to attend the hearing had been taken ill; when no advocate had been booked. 

The claim made an 'unless order' to strike out the claim. But Lennon did not inform the client about the order, and instead sent an early assessment report to the client in which she referred to negotiating an arrangement with the defendant. When the claim was eventually struck out, Lennon took the matter out of the office diary system, to try to prevent it coming to the team's attention for review. 

When the case was reassigned to a colleague, Lennon admitted to her manager that she had lied. In an email in October 2020, she said “I’ve cocked up a bit...unfortunately, the claim has actually been struck out as I missed a hearing date. I’ve buried my head in the sand a bit on this one."

"I can only apologise and have absolutely no excuse," she said. "I get anxiety, there was a lot going on and I made really a really rubbish decision not to just tell all when happened. I totally hold my hands up on this one and have cocked up…"

The firm dismissed Lennon in October 2020 for gross misconduct. Ascent and Irwin Mitchell then carried out a further review of her files and discovered that the solicitor had misled the same client about the progress of litigation in other matters, where she had told the client that judgment had been obtained in their favour, when the cases had not progressed or been struck out.

The investigation unearthed eight matters in total where Lennon had allegedly misled a client, and/or the court. In two instances, the firm discovered that Lennon had fabricated court attendance notes purportedly from the firm’s advocacy provider, LPC.  

The tribunal noted that Lennon's conduct was "sustained and not an isolated one-off moment of poor judgment." The panel found her culpability to be "high", saying that she had "lied to clients, to her employer and to the Court" and that "no exceptional circumstances" had been provided.  

The tribunal struck Lennon off the roll and ordered that she pay the SRA's costs of £2,000.

An Irwin Mitchell spokesman said: "No action was taken by the SRA against Ascent in this matter" and that "Amanda Lennon is no longer an employee". He added: "We have robust supervision policies in place and where any issues are identified we will take disciplinary action as appropriate." 
 

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