Future trainee’s law dream over
A paralegal who forged client signatures and faked an email to cover her tracks has been barred from the solicitors’ profession by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA) and stripped of her training contract — just months before she was due to start.
Nishaat Shamas Saeed, an immigration paralegal at Elaahi & Co, was found to have acted dishonestly and to the serious detriment of the firm’s client, who was making an application for an extension of leave to remain. As a result, the SRA made an order barring her from working in the profession without the SRA’s prior approval.
Saeed had completed her LPC and had worked at the firm as a senior paralegal from 5 September 2023. She was due to start a training contract with the firm in June 2025, but was summarily dismissed on 24 February that year after her actions came to light. The misconduct took place over at least three days in mid-February 2025.
Saeed had failed to send declaration forms to the firm’s client and their sponsor for signing. She admitted to the SRA that she had attempted to conceal this mistake by forging both signatures on four forms before sending them to the Home Office.
She also admitted to falsifying an English language certificate dated 20 January 2025, which she submitted to the Home Office despite the client never completing such a qualification. She said she did this to hide her failure to advise the client that their application required obtaining the certificate.
The firm began an investigation, during which Saeed fabricated an email containing the declaration forms, purporting to have been sent to the client at 6pm on 8 February 2025, and tampered with screenshots of images from her work laptop. The SRA found that she had done this to mislead the firm into believing that the client had been sent the forms.
When presented with the evidence gathered during the investigation, Saeed admitted that she had acted dishonestly.
The SRA barred her from the profession, citing “the serious nature of her conduct which was dishonest and had a serious detrimental impact upon the firm’s client.” It also noted that “[t]he client was unaware of and was not involved in Ms Saeed’s dishonest conduct but despite this it had a significant detrimental impact on the client’s immigration application.”
Saeed was also ordered to pay the SRA’s costs of £600.
Yes this is a serious offence and being barred from the profession is completely warranted.
Anyone who forges signatures and tampers with screenshots to hide a mistake from a client and their firm should not be a lawyer.
Why? You make a mistake, just own the mistake. Honestly I dont understand the need to fake, forge and hide the error. In the grand scheme of things its not even that bad, yes you messed up, you admit it, you take the bollocking and then you move on if you get disciplined you learn from it and move on why are you forging signatures? Its human error most firms and companies would understand. Even if you got fired and lost the TC at least you wouldnt be banned from the profession. Instead of fixing it the right way you made the situation a million time’s worse