Samantha Jayne Dyson

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

Samantha Jayne Dyson, a solicitor at Plexus Legal LLP, admitted three allegations: filing a misleading witness statement with a signed statement of truth stating there was no history of failures by her defendant client and full compliance with court orders (when she ought to have known this was misleading); failing to tell her client/insurer that the defence and counterclaim had been struck out after an 8 November 2021 hearing; and failing to tell her Firm of the same. The SRA originally alleged dishonesty (Principle 4) but withdrew it, accepting the Respondent's account of her knowledge and that the Firm's investigation concluded she had not been dishonest. Recklessness was found as an aggravating feature. The Tribunal, dealing with the matter on the papers via an Agreed Outcome, found the misconduct serious but not warranting striking off, and imposed a 12-month suspension plus costs of £2,469.17.

Duties found breached:

• Not mislead the court
• Integrity
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• Disclose material information to client
• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues

Aggravating factors:

• Recklessness in relation to filing the misleading witness statement
• Risk that the court would be misled by her statement of truth
• Repeated misconduct in failing to inform both client and firm
• Misconduct continued over a period of time
• Ought reasonably to have known her conduct breached obligations to protect the public and profession's reputation

Mitigating factors:

• Relatively inexperienced as a solicitor (particularly in multi-track credit hire cases)
• Confusion partly caused by administrative errors not of her making (file opened incorrectly, misleading court communications)
• Genuine insight and admission of misconduct with deep regret
• Cooperated with the Firm's internal and SRA investigations
• Personal circumstances including ill health (Covid/stress), loss of a senior role, young child and low financial means