Joanne Elizabeth Tappin; Ria Lakhani

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

Joint proceedings against a solicitor (Tappin, First Respondent) and a paralegal (Lakhani, Second Respondent) concerning misleading emails sent in two conveyancing transactions in October 2021. The dishonesty allegations against the First Respondent were withdrawn at the outset based on medical evidence; the Tribunal then found the remaining allegations against her not proved and dismissed them, imposing no sanction but ordering her to pay £10,000 costs. The Second Respondent withdrew on day three after her adjournment application was refused; the hearing proceeded in her absence. The Tribunal found both allegations against her proved, including express findings of dishonesty under Ivey (sending false/misleading emails to buyer's solicitors and to a client's son to conceal file errors), breaching Principles 2, 4 and 5. It imposed an indefinite section 43 order and ordered her to pay £4,500 costs (reduced from the £54,147.50 claimed in light of means).

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• Integrity
• No conflict between current clients

Aggravating factors:

• Deliberate dishonesty in both incidents
• Repeated misconduct within a short period
• Direct control over circumstances giving rise to the misconduct
• High culpability and high harm
• Breach of trust - lying to solicitors and to a client's relative

Mitigating factors:

• No previous regulatory findings on record

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["unverified_costs_amount=14500"]