Former Fulbright & Jaworski partner Richard Simkin is set to be sentenced in March after pleading guilty to charges of false accounting and fraud.

Simkin, who resigned from the US firm's London office in September 2008, and his wife Zakia Sharif, who was dismissed as an office manager by the firm in the same year, have admitted to stealing as much £100,000 from the firm in false expenses claims, according to reports in The Times and The Evening Standard.

An initial hearing was held in May 2011, with Simkin struck off the Solicitors Regulation Authority register two months later.

During this first hearing Simkin admitted to the charges, while Sharif pleaded not guilty before later changing her plea in all but two of the seven charges after being told she could face a prison term.

Sharif had falsely claimed she had two law degrees from King's College London to secure her job at Fulbright, and after being dismissed from the US firm took a position at Holman Fenwick Willan. She has since been barred from working as a legal executive.

A spokesman for Fulbright said: "Following a report to the City of London Police made by the firm in 2008, a former partner in the firm, Richard Graham Simkin, and the firm's former director of administration, Zakia Sharif, have pleaded guilty to charges against them, including fraud and false accounting. No client funds were involved.

"The firm, which now regards this matter as closed, wishes to pay tribute to the work undertaken in this matter by the City of London Police Economic Crime Department and, in particular, by DS Jane Moore and by the Crown Prosecution Service."

The news comes after former Hogan Lovells litigation partner Christopher Grierson appeared before the City of London Magistrates Court this week (9 January) after being charged with four counts of false accounting after allegedly defrauding his former firm of £1m in false expenses claims.

Grierson, who was dismissed by Hogan Lovells in May last year, is set to appear in Southwark Crown Court on 14 February.