Legal Futures reports…
A City solicitor who received a second police caution for possessing cocaine – but failed to report it out of fear of losing his job and marriage – has been banned from practice for a year.
Matthew Podger said he was going through a period of “significant stress” in his personal life at the time.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has approved a statement of agreed facts and proposed outcome reached between Mr Podger and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).
He qualified at Slaughter and May in 2013, joining the London office of US firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in 2017 until his resignation in January 2019.
In 2014, Mr Podger was cautioned for possessing cocaine, promptly self-reporting both to his firm and the SRA, telling them it was a “one-off and uncharacteristic lapse of judgment on my part”.
The regulator sent him a ‘letter of advice’ which was to lie on his file as a result. He disclosed what had happened to Cleary when he joined.
In March 2018, Mr Podger was arrested outside his home having been found in possession of three wraps of cocaine. He accepted a second caution.
This time he did not report himself to his firm or SRA until after Cleary received an anonymous tip-off. The firm suspended him and he resigned three days later.
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