Solicitor banned indefinitely for practising while bankrupt

A solicitor who carried on practising for almost a year after she was made bankrupt has been suspended indefinitely. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found that Sarah Louise Williams, admitted in 2012, had shown a ‘flagrant disregard of her professional obligations’ by continuing to work without SRA authorisation.

The tribunal found Williams had sought to conceal her bankruptcy from the regulator and it was plain that she knew or should have known that she was not allowed to carry on practising.

Williams was made subject to a bankruptcy order in January 2020. According to law, her practising certificate was automatically suspended from that point, but over the following 11 months she worked for two different firms as a locum before the SRA received an anonymous tip-off that she was still practising.

When the regulator tried to contact Williams, she suggested she was being targeted and harassed by a malicious neighbour and asked to know who had informed the SRA.

She later explained that she had been made bankrupt for a debt which was council tax owed by her landlord. Williams said she was not aware her PC had been suspended.

At the tribunal hearing, which Williams did not attend, the SRA submitted that the public would be ‘alarmed’ that a solicitor either knowingly practised without a PC or was unaware she was not allowed to.

The tribunal added: ‘Ms Williams failed to take any steps to consider how her bankruptcy may impinge on her practice in circumstances where an automatic suspension was triggered by the statutory framework which governs the profession.’

With no mitigation offered, the tribunal found she made a ‘conscious and deliberate decision’ not to tell the SRA about her bankruptcy. She will not be eligible to practise until the bankruptcy has been discharged, and after that she must apply to the tribunal for the termination of her suspension.

She must also pay the SRA’s costs of £13,350.