Altered time entry
A paralegal has had restrictions placed on her work in the legal profession after she claimed to have sent an early-morning email on time when she had not, and amended a time entry to match.
Brooke Middleton, who was employed as a paralegal at London firm Eversage Associates Limited, must now obtain the SRA’s prior approval before working at a regulated firm.
Middleton, who joined the firm in June 2024, was among the colleagues responsible on a rotation for sending a 7am email to a Home Office Priority Service (HOPS) to secure a priority slot for client matters.
On 18 August 2025, she failed to send the HOPS email at 7am, later owning up to the slip with her colleagues. The following day, rostered once more, she again forgot, realising at around 8.30am that she had not sent it. She sent the email at 8.45am, aware it was now unlikely to do the job.
When two colleagues messaged her on Microsoft Teams to ask whether the email had gone out at 7am, Middleton told both that it had. She then uploaded the 8.45am email to the firm’s case management system, but manually amended the time entry to read 07.00.
Her colleagues went on to discover later that day that the email had not been sent at 7am, and Middleton was summarily dismissed for gross misconduct on 20 August 2025. The firm reported her to the SRA a week later.
The regulator found that Middleton had acted dishonestly, both in telling colleagues she had sent the email at 7am and in altering the time entry to match.
Given the serious nature of dishonest conduct, it concluded it was undesirable for her to be involved in legal practice without prior approval, and made an order under section 43(2) of the Solicitors Act 1974.
Middleton was also ordered to pay the SRA’s costs of £600.
When will people learn, its not the crime, its the cover up which results in sanctions. You turn a simple mistake into a dishonesty offence.
I find firms are very quick to sack paralegals and juniors who make mistakes. A cynic might say that if you keep a paralegal too long then you may have to give them a pay rise. Of course that problem is solved if you can contrive a reason to get rid of them. Or indeed if you can pressure them into making mistakes which can then be used as a reason to deny them a pay rise.
I don’t know the first thing about this particular case. But I would not be surprised if she feared losing her job if she confessed to not sending the email two days in a row.
So I think it is very unfair for the sra to not consider her dishonesty in the context of how employment in law firms really works. Although this particular law firm may be the nicest in the world.
At the very least colleges and universities should make the students aware of the ubiquity of strange and unpleasant people at law firms.
You may be put into situations where you have to choose between your job and your career. She should not have replied to the teams message or put anything in writing – it’s a trap. She should have waited for them to call her as they surely would. See how seriously they were taking it. Play them at their own game.
Lol imagine getting paid barely minimum wage and having to wake up at 7am to send an email out. Being a paralegal is literally a joke!
There’s no denying the dishonesty and cover up are wrong; I don’t condone these acts at all but it does raise questions as to what type of firm and working culture this junior was experiencing.
Obviously, I’m not aware of this firm and they could be amazing but hierarchy definitely plays a major part in the legal roles, no matter where you’re working. If juniors don’t feel supported enough at work to be able to own up to their mistakes without fearing job security or punishment its a vicious endless cycle that risks repetition of this type of dishonest behaviour…
As legal professionals of course we are highly regulated but I can’t help but notice the amount of news stories where junior legal professionals face the SRA’s wrath. Accountability should always be taken but it seems our sector (including its more seasoned lawyers) continue to uphold working cultures full of harassment, bullying, intimidation etc under the guise of “that’s the reality of law, deal with it or get out” when actually it’s the older generation holding onto an “if I had to go through it, so do you” mindset.
To be fair that is pretty dishonest.
If you do something wrong just own up. Better to face the music from your colleagues than the SRA.
Besides, if they’re making you get up and send emails at 7 am EVERY DAY that’s a dreadful place to be…
Without doubt a stupid thing to do, and sanction is unavoidable.
BUT – why were juniors left to do such an important job? And why was she not being supervised after the first error. And what was the environment in her workplace that led her to try to cover up rather than own up?
The individual must take the blame here, it is their error. But the environment around them was clearly not conducive.
Oopsie!!!
You could simply schedule an email to be sent at 7am.