A probate solicitor accused of “recklessness” and the sending of “misleading emails” has had a case brought against her by the Solicitors Regulation Authority thrown out.
A Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal dismissed all misconduct allegations against Davina Charlton, finding that she was “overworked” and the expectations on her were “too high”.
The allegations related to Charlton’s time as senior associate in the wills and probate team at Derby-based firm Nelsons.
She was accused of having sent correspondence to a client’s daughter and son-in-law which she knew or ought to have known was misleading, because it omitted to them that her client’s application for lasting powers of attorney (LPAs) had been sent to the office of the public guardian in April 2022 rather than in 2021. She was also alleged to have written to the firm’s Professional Standards Team with the same information.
Recklessness was also alleged as an aggravating feature of Charlton’s misconduct.
Charlton, who qualified in 2016, denied all the allegations against her.
The tribunal found the SRA “did not prove” the allegations on the balance of probabilities and dismissed them in full.
The SRA accused the solicitor of deliberately withholding information about the late filing of LPAs, but court found that Charlton ‘“genuinely believed” the information she had sent to her client and the Professional Standards Team was accurate “at the time of sending”.
The published ruling “accepted her evidence that she was overworked and given limited administrative support” and that “she was firefighting in order to keep her work commitments moving and supporting and supervising the team in Derby in the absence of a partner in that office.”
The judgment said: “The tribunal accepted her evidence that when writing the email Ms Charlton had no intention to mislead [her clients]. It considered the extraordinary personal and professional pressures she was under at the material time, including her workload of around 130 files with limited administrative support through IO and Richo, both systems having let Ms Charlton down in the past (as she had raised with those senior to her in the firm).”
It noted that Charlton had no previous disciplinary hearings against her and also said it found her evidence “compelling and the SRA did not present any evidence to contradict her position about the difficulties she faced managing her heavy caseload”.
There were no applications for costs made by either side, and no cost order was made.
