Honor Lamont

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

Honor Lamont, a non-solicitor personal injury executive employed by Thompsons Solicitors, made two payments (£10,000 and £5,000) from her own funds to a client purporting to be interim payments, then created and signed a £15,000 authority form falsely purporting to come from the client directing the interim payment into her own account. The Tribunal found her conduct sufficiently serious that it would be undesirable for her to be employed by a solicitor, and made a Section 43 order plus costs of £2,243.80. No express finding of dishonesty was made; no loss was caused and she obtained no benefit.

Duties found breached:

• No unlawful discrimination or harassment
• No improper use of client money

Aggravating factors:

• Respondent took a conscious and improper decision and falsely signed an authority form
• Failed to reply to the Law Society's request for explanation

Mitigating factors:

• No loss was sustained by the client or Thompsons
• No benefit was obtained by the Respondent
• Respondent made admissions in her letter of 11 June 2007