A lawyer who has appeared on TV and acts in cases against the police and state is being taken to tribunal by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).
The SRA said it is prosecuting Soophia Khan of Sophie Khan & Co Ltd at the independent Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
Last summer BusinessLive reported how Ms Khan was fighting an SRA decision to stop her acting as a solicitor.
At the time the SRA said that while it was investigating, Ms Khan could not practice as a solicitor and could not represent clients in court, adding it had powers to take possession of all documents and money held by the firm.
Ms Khan, whose business address is given as Portland House, Portland Towers, Leicester, specialises in claims against the police and state bodies, as well as inquests and human rights matters.
Ms Khan said she was unable to comment on the tribunal while the proceedings were active.
A spokesman for the SRA said: “We are prosecuting Ms Khan at the independent Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT), which has certified that there is a case to hear against her.
“As proceedings are live, we cannot comment any further on this matter.”
The SDT is a court of England and Wales and hearings are normally held in public.
The SRA will present its evidence behind the allegations at the hearing, and Ms Khan will be invited to make her own representations.
The tribunal will then decide whether or not the allegations are proven. If proven, it has unlimited fining powers, and in severe cases can strike off a solicitor from the roll.
The SRA said there were 11, as yet unproven, allegations against Ms Khan that the tribunal has agreed to look at while she was in practice at Sophie Khan & Co Ltd and following the SRA Intervention into the practice. They are:
1 – Settled damages claims advanced on behalf of two clients for sums substantially lower than the sums she had advised the clients they would receive and in circumstances where she had neither sought nor obtained authority from the clients to settle the claims at that level;
2 – Settled costs claims advanced on behalf of two clients without informing them of the offer of settlement or of its acceptance and without seeking or obtaining authority from the clients to settle the claims;
3 – Received a cheque in respect of the settlement of costs claims and paid the cheque directly into the firm’s office account without first giving or sending a bill of costs or other written notification of the costs incurred to the clients;
4 – On an unknown date, but after 26 November 2019, fabricated or falsified a pro-forma Fee Note and letters purporting to show contemporaneous notification to the clients of the costs claimed by the firm;
5 – Received a cheque in respect of the settlement of the clients’ costs claims to which the clients’ former solicitors had or asserted a claim and paid the cheque directly into the firm’s office account without accounting for the former solicitors’ costs;
6 – Breached the undertakings she had given to the former solicitors of the clients to protect the former solicitors’ position on costs and/or failed to ensure that the firm complied with the undertakings as it was required to do for which she was responsible;
7 – Failed to cooperate with the SRA and/or the Legal Ombudsman in relation to investigations by the SRA and the Legal Ombudsman into her conduct and practice at the firm and/or failed to ensure that the firm complied with its obligation to cooperate with the SRA and/or the Legal Ombudsman as it was required to do;
8 – Failed to ensure that the firm complied with the Legal Ombudsman’s final decisions dated 26 November 2019 in relation to a complaint and/or the firm’s obligation to cooperate with the Legal Ombudsman;
9 – Failed to ensure that the firm complied with Court Orders where there was no reasonable excuse for the firm’s failure to comply;
10 – Failed to deliver up practice documents of her own practice and the firm’s practice that were within her possession and/or control as required by the SRA’s Intervention Notice dated 19 August 2021;
11 – Failed to deliver up items listed in Schedule B of an Order dated 7 September 2021 and of an Order dated 21 September 2021 in accordance with the terms of the Order or at all. In doing so, she committed a contempt of court.
