A former Irwin Mitchell solicitor who claimed to have worked 23 hours in a single day has been struck off for grossly overstating the amount of time she spent on client matters.
Apologising for her conduct at an internal disciplinary meeting, Natasha Janet Dionne Fairs, now 47, said she had struggled to meet the time recording targets set by the firm.
Admitted in 2003, Fairs joined Irwin Mitchell’s serious injury team four years later and in 2022 was promoted to senior associate based in London. The firm reported her conduct to the Solicitors Regulation Authority in 2023 after colleagues alerted supervising partner Richard Geraghty.
An agreed outcome published by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal discloses that Geraghty conducted a review of Fairs’ time recording that covered a four-year period from April 2019. She was found to have recorded time ‘significantly in excess of what would be expected for a normal working day’.
The firm expected a fee-earner to record about 6.3 chargeable hours, but on 28 April 2020, for example, Fairs recorded 20 hours and 24 minutes. On 19 April 2022 she recorded 22.9 hours.
Fairs also recorded large amounts of time where costs were fixed or agreed. This meant her time would be written off with no identifiable detriment to the client or any other paying party. Colleagues working on the same cases did lose out, however, because rewards were based on costs being allocated to different fee-earners in proportion to time spent.
In mitigation, not agreed by the SRA, Fairs said she had been managing significant personal and professional pressures, including the serious illness and death of a close family member, the demands of homeschooling during the pandemic, and a high-volume and low-value caseload. Her supervisor was aware of many of these difficulties through monthly review and team meetings, but no formal adjustments were offered. This led Fairs to believe that support was either unavailable or not typically provided.
Time recording was one of about 16 annual performance measures Fairs had to meet, alongside client outcomes, business development, contributions to diversity and inclusion, and others. Fairs submitted that the expectation to maintain high performance across these extra areas added to the pressure she experienced and which she now accepted she did not manage appropriately.
Fairs accepted that her mitigation did not amount to exceptional circumstances which would justify the tribunal in making any order other than strike-off.
She was ordered to pay the SRA’s costs of £5,200.
