Put a foot wrong, or an email address right, and… splat.
A solicitor has been suspended for 12 months after he corrected a client’s email address in past correspondence to disguise the fact it had been wrong.
Michael Goodwin, who worked in the residential conveyancing team of West Midlands firm Talbots Law, had been qualified for just under two years when he was instructed by Client A on a house purchase.
When the matter was opened, someone at Talbots entered an incorrect email address for Client A on the system, which Goodwin used on 17 July 2023 to send her documents relating to her transaction.
His email didn’t get through, but the next day he resent it, this time to the correct address, prefixed with the message, “I understand you’ve not received the attached”.
He admitted to the SRA that “in a moment of panic” he also altered the email address of the 17 July 2023 email he was resending, so it would look like it had never been wrong.
The seemingly innocuous cover-up metastasised into a career disaster when there was a file review that October and Goodwin was called to an internal meeting, where he was asked about the discrepancy.
Goodwin told Talbots he “knew it was wrong and should not have done it”. He was immediately placed on paid leave and two weeks later he agreed to resign with immediate effect as part of a settlement agreement.
In non-agreed mitigation, some of which was redacted from the public record, Goodwin said that at the time of his slip he had been going through “a period of considerable emotional strain due to the terminal illness of his partner’s mother”, and that the “high-pressure environment” of the residential conveyancing sector “was not conducive” to his wellbeing.
Goodwin had been off for two months prior to his fateful meeting, but the SRA said in an outcome agreed with Goodwin that, “while ordinary, decent people may have sympathy with the Respondent’s circumstances, his conduct would nevertheless be considered dishonest”.
However, the SRA said Goodwin “has genuine insight into the factors that led to his panicked decision-making” and had taken steps to address them by engagement with mental health services.
Avoiding the possibility of being struck off, he was instead ordered by the SDT to be suspended for 12 months. Having taken his financial means into account, he was also ordered to pay a contribution of £12,500 to the SRA’s costs.