A legal administrator who worked for two different firms at the same time has been barred from working in the profession.

Eugenia Dakwa joined Ipswich firm Bates Wells & Braithwaite in January 2015 as a legal administrator, but would enter into an informal agreement a month later with London firm Greenland Lawyers LLP, where she had worked as a legal clerk until December 2014.

An SRA regulatory settlement agreement published yesterday stated that Dakwa had undertaken to work on client matters for Greenland in the evenings, although her employment contract with BW&B did not allow her to have other employment outside the firm without written prior permission. Dakwa had not told BW&B of her agreement with Greenland.

BW&B started an investigation after finding Dakwa was carrying out other paid work during office hours. This involved sending a ‘significant’ number of emails, a number of which made reference to telephone calls made on behalf of Greenland clients during office hours.

Dakwa was conducting and updating work for Greenland clients on BW&B’s systems and processing confidential and sensitive personal data about clients.

She also submitted a time sheet to Greenland which suggested work had been done in the evening, when email evidence indicated work was undertaken during BW&B office hours. This arrangement continued until the end of April 2015.