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London law society lashes treatment of young lawyers

The president of a solicitors’ body in London has claimed that young solicitors are losing their careers in “disproportionate numbers” for small mistakes.

Paul Sharma (president of Westminster & Holborn Law Society) also denounced England’s “rotten” legal culture, according to a report in the Law Society Gazette of England & Wales.

Speaking at a conference of junior lawyers, Sharma said that young solicitors were “burdened with mountains of work, and expected to complete it within impossible deadlines”.

The pressurised culture “forces mistakes and bad judgment”, he told the conference this weekend.

‘Battalion of lawyers’

“Young solicitors are being hauled up before the SDT [Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal] in disproportionate numbers for small mistakes, and losing their careers,” Sharma added.

He also claimed there was “inequality of arms” once cases reached the SDT, as young solicitors often could not afford to instruct lawyers, while the Solicitors Regulation Authority had a “battalion of lawyers” 

According to the Gazette, Sharma cited the recent case of Claire Matthews, a junior solicitor who was struck off the roll last year after she left confidential documents on a train. Matthews – who represented herself at the hearing – has subsequently won the right to have her case reheard.

“Surely, equity and equality of arms demanded that Claire Mathews had legal representation,” Sharma said. “Where was the equality of arms, that fundamental principle of justice that all accused deserve to be adequately and properly represented before punishment?”

The Westminster & Holborn Law Society has now launched a campaign to persuade the Law Society of England and Wales to pay for representation at the SDT.