Can making a huge mistake in work be gross misconduct?

[BumbleBumbleBumbleBumbleBee]

Mistake was found a year after work carried out. The person who made the mistake should absolutely have known better. It was signed off by others in the department at the time. Would this on its own be enough to be considered gross misconduct? A disciplinary hearing has been called.

Get some good employment lawyer advice op. You sound defeatist. I'd be raging, the blame culture, not recognising their general lack of checking is a massive business risk. I'm not HR, my 2 closest friends are employment lawyers, but from a basic finance business risk pov, I'd rip them to shreds for trying to blame you when they have a much bigger issue of business risk lack of proper procedures.

Are you in a union?

This isn’t right that you are in the firing line when your work was supposed to be checked

This

I agree with @Oblomov24

You've made one mistake which should have been spotted in sign off and have an otherwise perfect record as verified by audit.

There isn't a person that hasn't made a mistake.

Damn right

I agree with this ^

Put the fear of fucking God into those bastards and at the very least, if YOU decide to leave, get a bloody good reference from them

Don't let them bully and scare you

What level are you OP? There’s a huge difference between a 1PQE junior associate and a 10PQE senior associate.

In the programme on tv recently which investigated dodgy police officers, they all seemed to resign before the investigations concluded. This meant the disciplinary actions were ceased and they skipped off with their employer pensions intact. It was quite unbelievable as some of the accusations were pretty serious. Maybe follow their lead?

Law isn’t really a unionised sector. I don’t actually know which union (if any) accepts lawyers as members. I know some colleagues have tried for example to join Unison or unions active in the sector I work in (in house) and their applications have been rejected as not qualifying. If anyone does know of a union which does accept lawyers though I’d be interested in knowing which one.

@BumbleBumbleBumbleBumbleBee provided you have not done anything which would cause the SRA to strike you off (which doesn’t appear to be the case based on what you have said) your career is not over even if you do lose the current role. As PP have said everyone makes mistakes from time to time even lawyers and being open about this in interview and able to articulate what you have learned will stand you in good stead. The actual quantity of the loss to the client or the detail of the mistake itself aren’t relevant and shouldn’t be discussed as that is confidential client information

There is no point having someone sign off your work if they are not responsible for the errors.

OP if you are in probation period think very carefully about this. If you resign today, then all they can say is that you resigned. There is no misconduct on record and no disciplinary. You can just say to future employers that you started and didn't like the work culture and felt unsupported.
if you stay, know that the bar is far lower as you can also just fail probation and they can dismiss you for that reason too. If you know you messed up and even if the supervisor should have checked it, decide whether this is worth fighting and potentially having on record.

She gave the advice more than a year ago so whilst she may have been in her probation period when she did the work she won’t still be. She’s already said she’s a fully qualified lawyer so not doing a training contract either.

GMB, Prospect, Unite.

Unite has regional "finance & legal" branches. GMB legal sector members fall under the "commercial services" branch section.

I’m a lawyer for a national firm and one-off errors made in good faith are never disciplinary matters. As a supervisor, I’d expect to take responsibility for the work of my juniors.
has it resulted in the firm losing the client? I agree with other posters that you’re being lined up to take the fall for this and it’s not right.

Ah sorry I didn't see that. Yes then scratch my advice. Thanks

Sounds like they are making you a scapegoat

I’m a lawyer for a national firm and one-off errors made in good faith are never disciplinary matters.

I worked at one firm where you'd have been disciplined in such a situation. However, thankfully most firms aren't as shit!

I am now a lawyer but worked in a similarly regulated industry for a long time. Ultimately, the buck stops with the partner/fee earner. That is why they earn what they do. I wouldn't take the blame for this at all when there are at least two more senior levels (supervisor + fee earner (assuming they're not the same person)) who was responsible for catching this before it went to the client.

I'm a lawyer. Unless you've given advice without it being approved, I can't see what exactly you've done that might warrant a disciplinary investigation - unless your firm are awful which is quite possible.

Giving negligent advice is obviously an issue but that's for the firm and the lack of appropriate supervision is ultimately their fault.

If you've sent some advice out without it being checked then that would be different.

This is exactly why partners are expected to sign off advices.

Is the firm facing a case from the client? Is the client still on the books? The firm may regrettably seek to appease the client with a fall guy to save the account. I hope this doesn’t happen to you. I guess you have to provide an explanation for your decisions, and a timeline for your reporting meetings into the supervising manager. Keep it factual, and contemporaneous; save the ‘with hindsight I would have …’ for when you are asked. When is the disciplinary, and can you bring someone with you?

Insufficient research?!

It doesn't sound life-threatening.....and that is the kind of mistake that should be gross misconduct.

Might be interesting to see what disclaimers are in your T&Cs with clients. For example I sometime write research reports and basically put in the small print "this is a professional and competent job but essentially the client is responsible for their own actions utilising the info'

I'm really sorry if I'm speaking out of line here, but what what sort of firm are you working for?

I have no legal experience. None. Please note that.

But if your firm haven't covered themselves, and done due diligence, then they're their own worst enemy .

You did the work?
why was it not supervised? Checked properly?

Who said to the client dear client? Given everything that you've told us, We have considered all implications here and given a ABCwe think that this could possibly happen or worst case scenario or something else we haven't factored and this and that and option A is this, and option B is that, and option? C is that. All for you to ponder. and Worst case scenario it turns into a Uber Taxi drivers case (which is one of the biggest cases of the last century! or Maya Forstater case, and you don't want that! and you're gonna be in the news, and if you don't do this, and you don't do that..... and if you could at least consider this and that...,,

we've considered all these prospects and we've now decided that considering ABC but not D we now suggest ... this.

Surely this is the conversation?

And where on earth was the supervisor, intermediate partner, lead partner etc on all of this?

Why are you selling yourself so short?

Well, as someone in law you should know full well that unless you are qualified, and hold Professional Indemnity to give financial advice you shouldn't be doing so.

I'm dealing with a law firm at the moment on a part legal part financial situation, and they are very clear, they cannot and will not give financial advice and all financial aspects should be checked by an accountant.

If you have messed up it might not be the job to worry about but your professional future.

Ok. A bit late, so apologies for the style of writing.
I guessed it was law.
I have been both supervised and have supervised. I have also done plenty of regulatory work for various professions.
I am surprised by how calm and focused you are- you have clearly accepted the possible consequences. Keep the calm and focus- if nothing else, you will keep your dignity.

This post I have quoted is key. By not considering B at all, it really means you need to be dismissed- sorry. However, if B was 'standard/ basic knowledge' in that practice area a) it shows why you should be dismissed for lacking that basic knowledge but also b) shows your supervisor was at best negligent 'in failing to pick up such basic knowledge'. Any supervisor worth their salt, no matter their own heavy workload, would have identified the NEED to carry out the exercise of A,B,C as KEY, and, together with you, should have asked you to breakdown your choice and reasoning and why B, and C were not good; even just as an exercise to 'discount' those 2 options. Through my own analysis, I can conclude supervisor needs more support in having a manageable/ reduced workload, but I would not dismiss them.

Genuine Q, why are you concerned the supervisor is not facing the chop with you? You write and reason well, so I hope you can genuinely answer me.

You say the supervisor had the same info as you. But you were the one doing the job and not the supervisor. You seem to have approached this job with 'devil may care attitude' hence the possible consequneces you are now facing.