Legal aid funded solicitor who inaccurately recorded time on the firm’s case management system, including 133 days in which she recorded more than 24 hours, has been struck off the roll.
Samina Ahmed, admitted in 2005, was a senior solicitor and a supervisor of trainees at national firm Tuckers Solicitors LLP. Her practice at the firm centred on clients in prison and providing representation at parole hearings, as funded by the Legal Aid Agency. Her misleading time entries led to the agency overpaying the firm almost £100,000.
Ahmed was accused, while in practice as a solicitor at Tuckers, of recording time on the firm’s case management system that she knew, or ought to have known, did not accurately reflect the work that she had completed. Ahmed, who was employed at the firm until September 2022, admitted the allegation again her.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal’s judgment said Ahmed ‘knowingly recorded false time entries’. Between 1 July 2021 and 30 June 2022, she recorded 7,511.70 hours over 266 days, an average of 28.24 hours a day, which included 133 days for which she recorded more than 24 hours, ‘which was an impossibility’. It added: ‘Ms Ahmed continued to do this, even after being warned in a meeting…and by so doing she misled the firm.’
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