18 months suspension and pupillage terminated
A pupil barrister has been sanctioned for producing a skeleton argument during an internal assessment which had “striking similarities” to her supervisor’s own document.
The rookie barrister was called to the bar in July 2023 before beginning her pupillage in October that year with a commercial chambers.
The ruling names the pupil but does not identify the chambers or her supervisor. Legal Cheek has chosen not to name her.
Shortly afterwards, in November, she was set a piece of written work to be completed for her pupil supervisor which involved producing a skeleton argument based upon a case they had previously worked on.
When undertaking the exercise she accessed one of her supervisor’s files, which she was not given permission to do, and viewed her supervisor’s original skeleton. She then submitted her work without mentioning the file.
Her supervisor “immediately noted many similarities between the respondent’s work and the original”, the judgment handed down by the Bar Tribunal Adjudication Service stated.
Once these concerns were passed to the chambers’ pupillage coordinators, she was invited to a meeting with two other members of chambers. Here she said she had seen the original document and “flicked through it”, although “maintained that she had done the work without reference to the original.”
Despite this, the chambers informed her that “it appeared” that she was in breach of the Code of Conduct, and was required to self-report to the Bar Standards Board (BSB). Whilst she did this the following day, she later admitted that this report “understated the extent to which she had referred to the original”.
After further interviews with chambers in December she admitted that she had “misled” the chambers during her interviews, and in written correspondence. “She was unable to say exactly how much time she had spent looking at the original but said that she had returned to it between 5 and 10 times for under 5 minutes on each occasion.”
Her pupillage was terminated later in December, with the pupil self-reporting for a second time.
Three charges related to her actions were levelled against her by the regulator, each of which she admitted.
In mitigation her barrister submitted that she had “outstanding academic records, a
great future ahead of her, but a curious and inexplicable lack of self-confidence. Her brief experience of pupillage was lonely. She did not adjust well. She was young and inexperienced and had felt out of her depth.”
Continuing they added that, “She compared herself unfavourably with other pupils and suffered from ‘imposter syndrome’.” She was not a fundamentally dishonest person; she had acted out of character and had already paid a high price. A number of factors had come together as a perfect storm resulting in an aberration in the life of this young barrister.”
The tribunal also noted that “at no stage did the respondent seek to blame anyone other than herself for her conduct. She regretted the difficulty she had caused for chambers and the time that many members had had to spend to deal with this case.”
She went on to add that “she did not see herself returning to the bar. She had gone from loving the law to no longer wishing to have anything to do with it. She could not even bear to listen to anything about the law on the radio and she now hated being in London.”
Turning to the appropriate sanction, the tribunal concluded that there were “exceptional circumstances” to justify a departure from the ordinary sanction of disbarment.
“Of particular importance” the tribunal said, “were the respondent’s youth, inexperience, feelings of inadequacy at the time, previous exemplary conduct, and the high esteem in which she was and is still held by the referees, her deep and genuine remorse, and the limited harm caused.”
Ultimately, the “lowest proportionate sentence” was a term of 18 months. She was also ordered to pay costs in the sum of £1,560.
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