Just months before she was scheduled to begin, the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA) banned a paralegal from the solicitors’ profession and revoked her training contract for forging client signatures and fabricating an email to hide her tracks.
Elaahi & Co.’s immigration paralegal Nishaat Shamas Saeed was found to have behaved dishonestly and seriously harmed the firm’s client, who was requesting an extension of leave to remain. Consequently, the SRA issued an order prohibiting her from engaging in the profession without the SRA’s prior consent.
Saeed began working as a senior paralegal at the business on September 5, 2023, after completing her LPC. After her acts were discovered, she was unceremoniously sacked on February 24, 2025, even though she was scheduled to begin a training contract with the company in June of that same year. The misbehaviour occurred in mid-February 2025 over a minimum of three days.
Saeed neglected to forward declaration paperwork for signature to the firm’s sponsor and client. She acknowledged to the SRA that she had forged both signatures on four papers before forwarding them to the Home Office in an effort to hide this error.
Additionally, she acknowledged that she had falsified an English language certificate dated January 20, 2025, which she had given to the Home Office even though the client had never fulfilled the requirements. She said that she did this to cover up the fact that she neglected to inform the customer that the certificate was necessary for their application.
Saeed falsified an email with the declaration forms, claiming to have been sent to the client at 6 p.m. on February 8, 2025, and altered screenshots of pictures from her work laptop during the firm’s examination. She had done this to deceive the firm into thinking the customer had received the forms, according to the SRA.
Saeed acknowledged that she had behaved dishonestly after being shown the evidence collected throughout the investigation.
Because of “the serious nature of her conduct which was dishonest and had a serious detrimental impact upon the firm’s client,” the SRA banned her from practicing. Additionally, it stated that “[t]he client was unaware of and was not involved in Ms. Saeed’s dishonest conduct but despite this it had a significant detrimental impact on the client’s immigration application.”
Saeed was also mandated to cover the £600 in expenses incurred by the SRA.
Just months before she was scheduled to start her training contract, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) barred a paralegal from the solicitors’ profession for forging client signatures, fabricating an English language certificate, and fabricating an email trail in an effort to hide her misconduct.
The SRA discovered that Nishaat Shamas Saeed, a senior immigration paralegal at Elaahi & Co., had acted dishonestly in a way that seriously harmed one of the firm’s immigration clients.
Her path to qualifying has thus been effectively blocked by the regulator’s ruling prohibiting her from practicing law without its prior consent.
Saeed joined the firm on September 5, 2023, after completing the Legal Practice Course (LPC). She was supposed to start a training contract in June 2025, but once her wrongdoing was discovered, she was summarily fired on February 24, 2025. In mid-February 2025, the dishonest behaviour took place over a minimum of three days.
The SRA discovered that prior to submitting an application for an extension of permission to remain to the Home Office, Saeed neglected to deliver required declaration documents to the client and the client’s sponsor for signature. She acknowledged faking both signatures on four declaration papers before presenting them as authentic, instead of correcting the omission.
Her misbehaviour went beyond that. Saeed further acknowledged that, even though he knew the client had never earned the qualification, he had falsified an English language certificate dated January 20, 2025, and submitted it to the Home Office.
The SRA concluded that she did this in an effort to hide the fact that she had previously neglected to inform the client that getting the certificate was necessary in order to submit an immigration application.
Saeed made up an email claiming that the declaration forms had been sent to the client at 6:00 p.m. on February 8, 2025, in an attempt to hide her tracks when the firm started an internal investigation.
In order to bolster the fake narrative, she also modified screenshots from her work laptop. The regulator came to the conclusion that these acts were intended to deceive the firm into thinking the client had received the required paperwork when, in reality, they had not.
Saeed acknowledged that she had behaved dishonestly when confronted with the evidence acquired throughout the investigation.
According to the SRA’s ruling, Saeed was prohibited because to “the serious nature of her conduct which was dishonest and had a serious detrimental impact upon the firm’s client.”
The client “was unaware of and was not involved in Ms. Saeed’s dishonest conduct, but despite this it had a significant detrimental impact on the client’s immigration application,” the regulator added.
The SRA has consistently argued that intentional acts of dishonesty undermine public trust in the administration of justice and typically lead to expulsion from the profession, especially when they involve forged documents, false representations to public authorities, and attempts to mislead an employer.