Disciplinary Record - Louise Bolderstone

Decision - Employee-related decision

Outcome: Control of non-qualified staff (Section 43 / Section 99 order)

Outcome date: 10 May 2019

Published date: 6 June 2019

Firm details

Firm or organisation at time of matters giving rise to outcome

Name: Ropes & Gray International LLP

Address(es): 60 Ludgate Hill, London, EC4M 7AW

Firm ID: 521000

Outcome details

This outcome was reached by SRA decision.

Decision details

Disciplinary Decision

Louise Bolderstone, who is not a solicitor, was employed as a trainee solicitor by Ropes & Gray International LLP at 60 Ludgate Hill London EC2M 7AW from 17th August 2016 until 28 February 2018.

During her employment at Ropes & Gray, Louise Bolderstone

• printed a share certificate, traced the client’s signature onto it and sent it to a third party reporting it to be the original which had been lost.
• misled her colleague and a third party in relation to the share certificate.

Louise Bolderstone was found to have been dishonest and to have breached Principle 2 (lack of integrity) and Principle 6 (you do not undermine the trust the public places in you and in the provision of legal services) of the SRA Principles 2011.

Louise Bolderstone was made subject to an order under section 43(2) Solicitors Act 1974. She was also given a written rebuke, directed to pay a financial penalty of £2,000 and ordered to pay costs, including appeal costs, of £1,600.

Section 43 Order

IN THE MATTER OF Louise Bolderstone

A person who is or was involved in legal practice but is not a solicitor

SECTION 43 SOLICITORS ACT 1974 (AS AMENDED)

• Louise Bolderstone created a share certificate, traced the client’s signature onto it and sent it to a third party reporting it to be the original which had been lost.
• misled her colleague and a third party in relation to the share certificate.

FINDING

Louise Bolderstone who is or was involved in a legal practice (as defined by section 43(1A) of the Solicitors Act 1974) but is not a solicitor, has occasioned or been a party to, with or without the connivance of a solicitor, an act or default in relation to a legal practice which involved conduct on her part of such a nature that in the opinion of the Society it would be undesirable for her to be involved in a legal practice in all of the ways sets out below.

ORDER

To make a section 43 order from the date of the letter or email notifying Louise Bolderstone of this decision that:

1. no solicitor shall employ or remunerate her in connection with his/her practice as a solicitor;
2. no employee of a solicitor shall employ or remunerate her in connection with the solicitor’s practice;
3. no recognised body shall employ or remunerate her;
4. no manager or employee of a recognised body shall employ or remunerate her in connection with the business of that body;
5. no recognised body or manager or employee of such a body shall permit her to be a manager of the body; and
6. no recognised body or manager or employee of such a body shall permit her to have an interest in the body

except in accordance with a Society permission.