Howard Hemley was sacked by the firm last December
An office clerk at one of the City’s most elite law firms has been banned from working in the legal profession after it emerged he had stolen £3,000 worth of “paper and other stationery”.
Howard Hemley, of Stamford Hill, London, was — until his dismissal last December — employed by magic circle outfit Slaughter and May as an office services clerk.
According to a Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) decision published earlier this week, Hemley misappropriated “paper and other stationery” worth approximately £3,000.
Finding that Hemley had “acted dishonestly”, the regulator said it would be “undesirable for him to be involved in a legal practice”. Hemley — who is not a solicitor — was banned from working within the legal profession and slapped with a £300 costs order.
This isn’t the first law firm employee to seemingly take a fancy to their firm’s supplies cupboard. Earlier this year Legal Cheek reported on a supervisor at City-based outfit Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co who was barred from the profession for flogging his employer’s printer toner on eBay.
According to the SRA, Andrew Cook — who had worked at the firm’s Birmingham office — received £227.34 for the printer cartridges, after £3 was deducted in eBay fees. He was dismissed from the firm in May 2015.