False time recordings
A solicitor who supervised trainees has been struck off after claiming she worked the equivalent of 28-hour days in a bid to secure a bonus worth almost £70,000.
Samina Ahmed, who qualified in 2005, was a senior solicitor at national outfit Tuckers Solicitors and worked predominantly on prison law matters funded by the Legal Aid Agency. Over a 12-month period, she recorded thousands of hours on the firm’s case management system that the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) described as “an impossibility”.
Between July 2021 and June 2022, Ahmed logged 7,511.7 hours over 266 working days, averaging more than 28 hours a day. On 133 of those days, she claimed to have worked more than 24 hours.
The tribunal heard that Ahmed “knowingly recorded” time entries that did not accurately reflect the work she had carried out. Those inflated figures were used to bill the Legal Aid Agency and ultimately resulted in the public body overpaying Tuckers by just over £98,000, money the firm later had to repay.
Despite being warned at a staff meeting in April 2022 after concerns were raised internally, Ahmed continued to falsify her time records. At the time, she was also responsible for supervising trainees at the firm.
The motivation, according to the tribunal, was the firm’s bonus scheme, which rewarded high billers. Ahmed was aiming to reach the top bonus tier, worth up to 400% of her salary, which could have seen her personally pocket £69,300. No bonus was ultimately dished out, as the misconduct was discovered before that stage.
The SDT found that Ahmed had “acted dishonestly” and “failed to act with integrity”, misleading both the Legal Aid Agency into paying for work that was not done and her firm into believing she was eligible for a bonus.
In striking her off the roll, the tribunal said the seriousness of her conduct was at the “highest level” and that the sanction was fair, reasonable and proportionate given the foreseeable harm caused to the public purse and the reputation of the profession.
Ahmed was also ordered to pay £5,000 in costs, reduced from a much higher figure after the tribunal took into account her financial circumstances.