A fee earner who emailed himself details of clients to take with him to a new job has been barred from the profession.
Patrick Maginn worked on housing disrepair cases at Liverpool firm Bond Turner for five months before leaving for neighbouring McDermott Smith. Shortly before he left, Maginn accessed confidential and proprietary information and sent 50 emails with attachments to his personal email address. The attached documents including templates and workflow documents and confidential client information.
He subsequently forwarded a large number of the Bond Turner emails and attachments to his new work address and used some of the documents in his new role.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority said Maginn had shown a lack of integrity and serious error of judgement, failing to understand his duty of client confidentiality.
The regulator added: ‘Mr Maginn’s conduct was not simply naive or foolish, but demonstrated a serious departure from the high ethical standards of practice to which all employees of an SRA-regulated practice are expected to adhere. There is a risk that Mr Maginn could act in a similar manner to the detriment of another SRA-regulated practice, and potentially its clients by misusing their confidential information, if he is employed in another legal practice.’
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Maginn was handed a section 43 notice barring him from working for any regulated law firm without SRA permission. He must also pay £600 costs.
Maginn has already been found guilty in court of contempt, following an application made by Bond Turner. He was sentenced last year to four months’ imprisonment suspended for six months, on condition that he complied with a court order not to use any of the information he had sent himself.
McDermott Smith went into administration a year ago with annual accounts showing the firm owed around £37.5 million, mostly to litigation funders.
