A solicitor has been ordered to pay £54,000 costs after unsuccessfully challenging a £2,000 fine from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).
Family law solicitor Donna Eloise Cannon, who practised as a sole practitioner at her practice, Perfectly Legal, appealed to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal after an SRA adjudicator found five allegations against her proven in July 2016. Cannon had been a founding partner at Hampshire firm Principal Law between 2010 and 2015, until a partnership dispute arose.
The SRA’s allegations included that she conducted correspondence in an inappropriate tone, incorrectly used headed notepaper, disclosed sensitive information about her former partner to a client and acted inappropriately when dealing with her bank relationship manager by calling them a ‘dishonest, incompetent idiot’ in an email.
Cannon countered that the adjudicator had shown bias, procedural unfairness, failed to properly consider the evidence and failed to correctly apply the facts and the law.
During the hearing, she admitted acting inappropriately to her bank relationship manager, but denied other wrongdoing.
However, she was unable to convince the tribunal to grant her appeal. Ordering that she pay costs to the SRA, tribunal chair Ms J Devonish said: ‘What had begun as a simple case of five allegations, for which the documents were sufficient proof, had turned on appeal into a three-day substantive hearing.
‘It was not clear to the tribunal why the appellant had apparently so fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the allegations she had faced and the adjudicator’s findings. For whatever reason, she had lost perspective and had pursued an appeal which appeared hopeless given that there was no evidence to suggest any unfairness or bias in the adjudication process.’
