Bhavani Rajaya Laxmi Hogarty, Maeve Teresa Vickery

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

Proceedings against the Second Respondent (Ms Hogarty) and Third Respondent (Ms Vickery), Equity Partners at Pardoes Solicitors LLP. The SRA alleged they caused/allowed pension contributions to be diverted to the office account (breaching Principles on integrity and public trust) and caused/allowed LAA disbursements to be retained beyond 14 days. The dishonesty allegation was made only against the First Respondent (Mr Adams), who admitted all allegations under a separate Agreed Outcome. The Tribunal found the SRA failed to prove the pension allegation (the firm had made payments to Scottish Widows and the respondents took reasonable steps once aware in September 2019) and rejected the integrity and public trust breaches. On the legal aid allegation, the Rule 7.1 charge was withdrawn and the Outcomes 7.2/7.4 allegations failed, but the respondents admitted breaching Rules 6.1 and 19.1(b) on a strict liability basis. The Tribunal assessed culpability as very low with no harm, found no aggravating factors and several mitigating factors, and imposed no sanction and no order as to costs (applying Broomhead).

Duties found breached:

• No conflict between current clients
• No improper use of client money

Mitigating factors:

• Short duration of the breach
• Long and otherwise unblemished careers
• Positive character references and witness evidence praising their honesty, integrity and trust
• Pragmatic admission of the strict liability breaches demonstrating genuine insight
• Very low culpability - unaware of the issue until the SRA investigation; breach arose from strict liability due to partnership status