By Gabriel Princewill-
Prominent criminal defense and human rights solicitor, Karen Todner, (pictured)has said she will pay a £25,000 fine imposed on her, after admitting her firm broke the rules by holding onto disbursements.
At the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, the highly accomplished legal practitioner made a joint application for an agreed outcome with the Solicitors Regulator Authority (SRA) which was approved by the tribunal.
The usually outstanding solicitor who once helped fight U.S extradition requests on behalf of the alleged Nasa hackers Gary McKinnon and Lauri Love, was accused along with her advisers in a civil claim of hiding a series of liabilities, including allowing her former firm to write £275,000 worth of cheques which were later stored in an office drawer instead of being sent to payees.
Court filings reveal that the concealed cheques had the effect of disguising unpaid debts and “but for such a practice, the Court company would have appeared to be plainly insolvent”.
The allegations and eventual fine against Todner, who was formerly a vice-president of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has tarnished her highly established image.
A woman lauded with enviable accolades, Karen has been awarded the Law Society Excellence Award, also as being Legal Personality of the year. She has additionally listed in the Hot 100 Lawyers of 2013 and was shortlisted for Halsbury’s Legal Personality of the Year Award 2013.
Some legal experts in the field have described her as a formidable force in the realm of criminal defense
Todner is mostly credited for her success in preventing the extraditions of McKinnon and Love to the US, where they were wanted on charges of hacking US government computer systems.
The finding of the Solicitor’s Disciplinary Tribunal is a slight on her otherwise decorated career which has spanned many years.
Failings And Challenges
Todner’s business finances has been beset with challenges over the years. In 2012, her firm entered a company voluntary arrangement – a formal process facilitates a compromise between a company and its creditors . She incurred a fin of £2,000 in 2017.
The regulator found that Todner had failed to notify the SRA about financial difficulties at Kaim Todner in 2012; failed to ensure that a client sought independent legal advice before she took a £25,000 loan from the same client in 2013; and allowed inappropriate payments to and from a client account, also in 2013.
The disgraced former solicitor also agreed to pay £21,000 costs and to the addition of restrictions on her practising certificate.
Punitive measures imposed on her by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal includes a prohibition on her acting as a compliance officer in any regulated firm, and a bar on her acting in the capacity as a signatory to any client or office accounts or authorizing transfers beyond a £100 limit for routine office expenses. She retained her right to continue to practise as a solicitor.
Todner admitted that while in charge of London firm Kaim Todner Solicitors Limited, she caused or allowed sums received by the firm for unpaid professional disbursements to be retained in the office account for longer than allowed. At the time, client ledgers wrongly showed the same monies had been paid out to counsel.
The lawyer admitted allegations in relation to three separate clients. Todner , including causing or allowing a minimum cash shortage of almost £100,000 to build up on the client account, and to failing to comply with her obligations as the firm’s compliance officer.
Following the conclusion of the case, Todner, whose clients include the so-called ‘Pentagon Hacker’ Gary McKinnon, said she wanted to put the matter behind her.
The prosecution has taken around 16 months, after Todner initially applied to have it thrown out on the grounds of abuse of process. She issued judicial review proceedings arguing that in July 2020 an ‘authorised decision-maker’ at the SRA had decided not to refer the matter to the tribunal. The situation was reversed five months later when the adjudicator decided to refer the case to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
In a statement, Todner said: ‘I hope by taking the actions I have, that I have exposed that which I believe to be an abhorrent practice, namely that at the SRA, legal advisers are routinely appointed as adjudicators in their own cases.
‘However, the SDT and a single judge at the High Court has endorsed such practice and without the support of the Law Society, I am unable to take the application for judicial review any further.
‘The way in which the solicitor’s profession is regulated is sorely in need of reform, including the method of appointment of adjudicators, the oppressive costs regime which only large firms can sustain and the instruction of only one firm to prosecute all matters. If the Law Society is not prepared to lead the way in this reform, then perhaps it is time for a new association to be formed for the whole profession to guide us and represent our interests.’