{"id":160780,"date":"2026-08-17T16:28:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T00:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/08\/17\/lawyer-disbarred-after-suggesting-colleague-be-sent-to-mental-asylum\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T16:28:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T00:28:00","slug":"lawyer-disbarred-after-suggesting-colleague-be-sent-to-mental-asylum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/08\/17\/lawyer-disbarred-after-suggesting-colleague-be-sent-to-mental-asylum\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyer Disbarred After Suggesting Colleague Be Sent To \u2018Mental Asylum\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

A barrister just earned the professional boot, and based on the findings, thinking a colleague should be committed is one of the least problematic allegations.<\/p>\n

The Independent<\/em> shared a report<\/a> on Mariam El-Sobky, until recently a Lincoln\u2019s Inn barrister, who made recordings of multiple family court proceedings and sent them back to staff over WhatsApp to be transcribed. Except these were the sort of proceedings intended to be kept under wraps because they might, you know, involve children. El-Sobky, the licensing authorities say, recorded and transcribed the hearings anyway without letting the judge know. <\/p>\n

That alone might not have earned El-Sobky this punishment. Unfortunately for her, that\u2019s not the end of the story.<\/p>\n

\n

She was also found to have \u201cfailed to keep the affairs of her client confidential\u201d in March 2021 by sending legal papers to the personal email address of an employee, without asking them to sign a confidentiality agreement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Did the UK just miss out on Hillary\u2019s emails? If so\u2026 we\u2019re all jealous.<\/p>\n

But the headline story is from December 2021, when El-Sobky took to the WhatsApp group chat to say of a former employee \u201cbest place for you I think is a mental asylum. No access to internet or Wi-Fi and restraints lol,\u201d and described her as \u201ca very sick young lady.\u201d An Employment Tribunal found in February 2023 that those messages amounted to harassment under section 26 of the Equality Act 2010.<\/p>\n

Ironically, if El-Sobky didn\u2019t have access to the internet or Wi-Fi, she would\u2019ve avoided all of these charges.<\/p>\n

However, arguably the worst transgression in the report involved a July 2021 hearing and it had nothing to do with misusing WhatsApp:<\/p>\n

\n

Mariam El-Sobky, a barrister, failed to act in the best interests of her client, in that, on 22 July 2021, when she was due to attend an Advocates\u2019 meeting in advance of a 5-day final hearing in care proceedings in which she was acting for the mother, she sent in her place an individual who was unqualified, and whom she knew was unqualified. As a result, the other advocates felt unable to receive Ms El-Sobky\u2019s client\u2019s position or discuss the issues and were forced to reschedule the meeting to the morning of the trial to accommodate Ms El-Sobky.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Which seems like the worst of the allegations. A mother faced losing her kids, and her lawyer not only didn\u2019t show up, but sent three raccoons in a trench coat in her place. <\/p>\n

Actually, that\u2019s not fair. Did you know raccoons are entirely indigenous to North America? Personally, I\u2019d never thought of it before, but it became a running subplot of the World Cup as Europeans asked about this exotic \u201craccoon\u201d creature. Norway\u2019s star player even brought a stuffed raccoon home from the tournament<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anyway\u2026 this wasn\u2019t the first time El-Sobky\u2019s been before a disciplinary tribunal. In May 2021 \u2014 right when she was in the midst of the current round of dodgy behavior \u2014 she was disciplined<\/a> over a 2019 incident where she spoke to the party on the other side without their lawyer present. And that was not even her first trip to the principal\u2019s office, because in March 2020 she was reprimanded and fined \u00a33,000 over a court order she failed to comply with and then had solicitors write to say she hadn\u2019t been served \u2014 which wasn\u2019t correct. <\/p>\n

It seems the third time marked the end of the charm. The tribunal disbarred her, subject to appeal, and stacked a lengthy suspension on top. <\/p>\n

She\u2019s not eligible to clear that suspension until she provides \u201csatisfactory proof of capacity to practise by a BSB approved mental health professional.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wonder what the group chat\u2019s saying about that?<\/p>\n

Lawyer who suggested colleague be placed in \u2018mental asylum\u2019 disbarred<\/a> [The Independent]<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Lawyer Disbarred After Suggesting Colleague Be Sent To \u2018Mental Asylum\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

A barrister just earned the professional boot, and based on the findings, thinking a colleague should be committed is one of the least problematic allegations.<\/p>\n

The Independent<\/em> shared a report<\/a> on Mariam El-Sobky, until recently a Lincoln\u2019s Inn barrister, who made recordings of multiple family court proceedings and sent them back to staff over WhatsApp to be transcribed. Except these were the sort of proceedings intended to be kept under wraps because they might, you know, involve children. El-Sobky, the licensing authorities say, recorded and transcribed the hearings anyway without letting the judge know. <\/p>\n

That alone might not have earned El-Sobky this punishment. Unfortunately for her, that\u2019s not the end of the story.<\/p>\n

\n

She was also found to have \u201cfailed to keep the affairs of her client confidential\u201d in March 2021 by sending legal papers to the personal email address of an employee, without asking them to sign a confidentiality agreement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Did the UK just miss out on Hillary\u2019s emails? If so\u2026 we\u2019re all jealous.<\/p>\n

But the headline story is from December 2021, when El-Sobky took to the WhatsApp group chat to say of a former employee \u201cbest place for you I think is a mental asylum. No access to internet or Wi-Fi and restraints lol,\u201d and described her as \u201ca very sick young lady.\u201d An Employment Tribunal found in February 2023 that those messages amounted to harassment under section 26 of the Equality Act 2010.<\/p>\n

Ironically, if El-Sobky didn\u2019t have access to the internet or Wi-Fi, she would\u2019ve avoided all of these charges.<\/p>\n

However, arguably the worst transgression in the report involved a July 2021 hearing and it had nothing to do with misusing WhatsApp:<\/p>\n

\n

Mariam El-Sobky, a barrister, failed to act in the best interests of her client, in that, on 22 July 2021, when she was due to attend an Advocates\u2019 meeting in advance of a 5-day final hearing in care proceedings in which she was acting for the mother, she sent in her place an individual who was unqualified, and whom she knew was unqualified. As a result, the other advocates felt unable to receive Ms El-Sobky\u2019s client\u2019s position or discuss the issues and were forced to reschedule the meeting to the morning of the trial to accommodate Ms El-Sobky.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Which seems like the worst of the allegations. A mother faced losing her kids, and her lawyer not only didn\u2019t show up, but sent three raccoons in a trench coat in her place. <\/p>\n

Actually, that\u2019s not fair. Did you know raccoons are entirely indigenous to North America? Personally, I\u2019d never thought of it before, but it became a running subplot of the World Cup as Europeans asked about this exotic \u201craccoon\u201d creature. Norway\u2019s star player even brought a stuffed raccoon home from the tournament<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anyway\u2026 this wasn\u2019t the first time El-Sobky\u2019s been before a disciplinary tribunal. In May 2021 \u2014 right when she was in the midst of the current round of dodgy behavior \u2014 she was disciplined<\/a> over a 2019 incident where she spoke to the party on the other side without their lawyer present. And that was not even her first trip to the principal\u2019s office, because in March 2020 she was reprimanded and fined \u00a33,000 over a court order she failed to comply with and then had solicitors write to say she hadn\u2019t been served \u2014 which wasn\u2019t correct. <\/p>\n

It seems the third time marked the end of the charm. The tribunal disbarred her, subject to appeal, and stacked a lengthy suspension on top. <\/p>\n

She\u2019s not eligible to clear that suspension until she provides \u201csatisfactory proof of capacity to practise by a BSB approved mental health professional.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wonder what the group chat\u2019s saying about that?<\/p>\n

Lawyer who suggested colleague be placed in \u2018mental asylum\u2019 disbarred<\/a> [The Independent]<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A barrister just earned the professional boot, and based on the findings, thinking a colleague should be committed is one of the least problematic allegations. The Independent shared a report on Mariam El-Sobky, until recently a Lincoln\u2019s Inn barrister, who made recordings of multiple family court proceedings and sent them back to staff over WhatsApp […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":160752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Headshot-300x200-DtemH1.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}