S Gupta & Others

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

Sujata Gupta (Second Respondent), a solicitor and equity partner at Davis & Co, was found to have dishonestly backdated ten letters to defeat a client's costs complaint, dishonestly overcharged the estate of EH deceased by raising an improper bill of £30,284.30 (almost exactly half of a £60,568 investment receipt), dishonestly failed to account to clients and beneficiaries (withholding over £30,000 from a charity), and breached Rule 22 SAR. The Tribunal applied the Twinsectra test and made express findings of dishonesty. With no exceptional circumstances, she was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay £65,000 costs (enforcement stayed pending a means hearing). The First Respondent, a salaried partner and whistleblower, had only a technical strict-liability Rule 22 breach found proved and received no order and no costs; the Third Respondent (the LLP) faced no findings and no order.

Duties found breached:

• Handle inadvertently received material
• No improper use of client money

Aggravating factors:

• Backdated ten letters to defeat a client complaint
• Used one backdated letter as a template for another
• Raised a bill for almost exactly half of a £60,568 investment receipt with no work to justify it
• Withheld over £30,000 from a charitable residuary beneficiary for almost a year
• Took £35,000 in personal payments from office account shortly after the improper bill
• Exploited a potentially vulnerable client (AR)

Mitigating factors:

• No previous disciplinary matters
• Medical difficulties
• Loss of her equity investment in the firm (approx £90,000)