An experienced solicitor who forged her divorce client’s signature has agreed she must leave the profession. In an outcome agreed with the Solicitors Regulation Authority, Sally Gandon was struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal following a one-day hearing last month.
Gandon, a solicitor for 44 years, accepted the strike-off but said the misconduct was isolated and momentary, coming at the end of a previously exemplary and unblemished career as a solicitor.
Gandon was a consultant with Surrey firm Goodhand & Forsythe when she was advising her client on a tenancy agreement on the marital home. This could be completed by each party signing a notice of severance and the client signed the document in March 2020.
Some three months later, Gandon realised the signed document had been misplaced. She prepared a new notice of severance, falsified her client’s signature and sent it to the husband. He did not recognise the signature and refused to sign it himself, making a complaint to the SRA in the process.
Gandon later explained that she genuinely believed she was helping her client who at the time was emotionally distressed. She apologised to her client, who continued to use the firm in the divorce proceedings. No disciplinary action was taken by the firm against Gandon, whose consultancy ended in 2022.
The solicitor offered her genuine and sincere apology and said she had been under significant personal and emotional pressure at the time, which contributed to her misconduct.
The SRA described Gandon as an experienced solicitor of more than 40 years who had direct control and responsibility for what happened. Her misconduct was ‘deliberate and planned to conceal the fact the original document was lost’.
The tribunal said the only possible sanction was to strike Gandon off the roll. She agreed to pay £3,304 costs.
