Gary Senior Case: What Must a Top Lawyer Do To Be Banned?
Committing sexual harassment and then influencing the subsequent investigation sounds pretty serious, you would think.
June 15, 2020 at 12:20 PM
4 minute read
It has been eight years since wrongdoing took place, seven months since a disciplinary tribunal began, and about £3 million has been racked up in costs by those involved.
So it feels somewhat anticlimactic that the final result was a £55,000 fine plus a similar amount in costs for Gary Senior, the former Baker McKenzie London head who was found guilty of sexual harassment and of seeking to improperly influence the internal investigation into the matter.
Some may view this as a victory for U.K. regulator the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which brought the case. A sign that the watchdog will go after the biggest names in its bid to stand up for women who have been harassed at work. But rest assured, this is no victory, not a clear one anyway.
The SRA failed in its claim against all the other defendants – Baker McKenzie, the firm's former head of dispute resolution Tom Cassels and its former head of human resources Martin Blackburn. All avoided any cost orders.
And not only does the final sanction for Senior seem minutely small compared with the costs and scale of the process, but everyone will have to wait until the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal's full judgment is released to find out how he could have been found guilty but not been banned from the profession.
After all, committing sexual harassment and then influencing the subsequent investigation sounds pretty serious. What does a lawyer have to do to lose their license to practice?
Parallels could be drawn here with the case of Ryan Beckwith, the former Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer partner who was fined £35,000 and ordered to pay costs to the tune of £200,000 but not banned from the profession by the tribunal after being accused of engaging in sexual activity with a junior without her consent.
In that case the SDT ruled his actions amounted to a "one-off incident", "a lapse in his judgment" and that misconduct was "highly unlikely to be repeated".
Contrast these sanctions with those given to some junior lawyers who some might say were guilty of lesser crimes.
Former Capsticks solicitor Claire Matthews was fined £10,000 and lost her license to practice law after losing a briefcase containing client documents then panicking and saying she still had it. It turns out the client on that day was the SRA itself. She is relying on crowdfunding to fund her appeal.
Haley Tansey, a former DWF trainee, was banned, rebuked and ordered to pay costs by the SRA after she "disclosed confidential information and personal data" to a friend "on multiple occasions without the firm's authority".
Louise Bolderstone, a trainee in Ropes & Gray's London office, was fined £2,000 plus costs and banned after recreating a client signature – a sanction that drew sympathy for her from many in the industry.
How do you lose your licence to practice law? Be a junior, it seems.
Granted, these were cases that involved clients, which the regulator appears to take particularly seriously. But what about the principle of acting with integrity, as required of a member of the profession, and behaving in a way that maintains the public trust?
The regulator's former executive director, Crispin Passmore, wrote an article for Legal Week in March saying "conduct in your private life might help the regulator judge how you may behave in your professional life. In the extreme, that might be something so serious that even though it is totally remote to the delivery of legal services it offends public values and the public's confidence in the regulated legal market and the solicitor's profession."
If that is a guide then one might have expected a harsher sanction.
Was the whole thing a waste of time? No. Senior is still the most high profile U.K. lawyer to have been found guilty of sexual harassment and the fact the case was brought at all shows the regulator is at least trying to take complaints seriously.
But given the case happened so long after the incident took place and Senior can still operate as a solicitor it is perhaps understandable if it has left a lot of people feeling slightly deflated.
|Read More:
Gary Senior Proceedings Cost Around £3M, Tribunal Hears
Gary Senior Fined, Avoids Being Banned From Profession
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllBig Law Walks a Tightrope But Herbert Smith Freehills Refuses to Lose Its Footing
8 minute readLuxembourg Hot, Beijing Not: In Today’s Cutthroat Market, Regions Need a Business Case
4 minute readLaw Firms Mentioned
Trending Stories
- 1Decision of the Day: Judge Reduces $287M Jury Verdict Against Harley-Davidson in Wrongful Death Suit
- 2Kirkland to Covington: 2024's International Chart Toppers and Award Winners
- 3Decision of the Day: Judge Denies Summary Judgment Motions in Suit by Runner Injured in Brooklyn Bridge Park
- 4KISS, Profit Motive and Foreign Currency Contracts
- 512 Days of … Web Analytics
Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250