Chinwe Uzo Chikwendu; Undiga Emuekpere

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

Two solicitors at Riverbrooke Solicitors were tried over the conduct of an Employment Tribunal matter for Client A. Allegation 1 (preparing a grossly inflated bill of costs), brought jointly with alleged dishonesty, was found NOT proved against both. Allegation 2 against the Second Respondent (Emuekpere) was proved: she created a false and misleading typed attendance note suggesting costs of over £30,000 were discussed at a meeting on 29 July 2017 when they were not, later relied upon during the Legal Ombudsman investigation. The Tribunal expressly found dishonesty (Ivey test) plus breaches of integrity and public trust. Allegation 3 against the First Respondent (Chikwendu) was proved: she failed to cooperate promptly with the SRA. The Tribunal found exceptional circumstances (Sharma) making strike off disproportionate and suspended the Second Respondent for 2 years, and reprimanded the First Respondent. Each was ordered to pay £15,000 costs.

Duties found breached:

• Integrity
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Cooperate openly with regulators
• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues

Aggravating factors:

• Second Respondent's dishonesty involved altering an important contemporaneous record relied upon in the Legal Ombudsman investigation, causing high harm to the integrity of the regulatory process
• First Respondent's failure to cooperate occurred over a significant period despite repeated reminders and her seniority as manager/owner

Mitigating factors:

• Both Respondents had unblemished regulatory records
• Second Respondent's dishonesty was confined to a single entry in a single attendance note and was not part of a wider course of conduct
• Second Respondent's inexperience (first litigated matter in a firm) and contextual pressures rather than financial gain
• No direct financial loss to Client A
• First Respondent's conduct was an isolated lapse of low culpability; document already held by SRA so no material delay to proceedings
• Character references and expressions of remorse/insight