Rachael Catherine Worthington

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

Rachael Catherine Worthington (formerly Williams), a solicitor employed at Irwin Mitchell LLP's Manchester WTED team, admitted that across four client matters (Clients A/B, C/D, E, and F) involving probate and will disputes she knowingly provided false and misleading information to clients, to insurers (Direct Line) and to opposing solicitors (IDR Law). She falsely claimed claims/proceedings had been issued or served when they had not, concealed an adverse costs order from Client C, and denied receiving probate registry correspondence. The Tribunal, dealing with the matter on the papers via an Agreed Outcome, was satisfied the admissions including dishonesty (Ivey test) were properly made. It found her conduct breached Principles 2, 4 and 5 and paragraphs 1.4 and 7.11 of the Code. Given the seriousness, she was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay £3,500 costs.

Duties found breached:

• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues
• No conflict between current clients
• Non-discriminatory acceptance and cab-rank

Aggravating factors:

• Misconduct caused clients to suffer financial losses
• Breach of trust placed in her as a solicitor
• Misled client insurers and third parties
• Sought to cover up the errors she had made
• Conduct repeated across four separate client matters over an extended period
• Deleted documents/emails and removed matters from supervision and handover lists

Mitigating factors:

• Early admission of the allegations
• Co-operation with the SRA
• Admitted in correspondence she had lied and that this was unacceptable