Honor Lamont

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

Honor Lamont, a non-solicitor personal injury executive employed by Thompsons Solicitors, made two payments (£10,000 and £5,000) from her own funds to a client purporting to be interim payments, then created and signed a false authority form purportedly from the client to have a £15,000 interim payment paid directly into her own account. She admitted the allegations but did not appear. The Tribunal found it undesirable for her to be employed by a solicitor and made a Section 43 order, ordering her to pay costs of £2,243.80. No express finding of dishonesty was made and no loss or benefit resulted.

Duties found breached:

• Act in the client's best interests
• No improper use of client money

Aggravating factors:

• Conscious and improper decision to falsely sign an authority form
• Failed to respond to the Law Society's enquiry and provided no explanation

Mitigating factors:

• No loss sustained by the client or the firm
• No benefit obtained by the Respondent
• Made admissions