Lawyer fined Â£1,000 for outing JK Rowling as author of crime novel Rowling wrote The Cuckoo's Calling under pseudonym Robert Galbraith Writer JK Rowling: The solicitor who outed her as the author of The Cuckoo's Calling has been fined Â£1,000 by his professional authority The solicitor who outed JKâ€‰Rowling as the author of a crime novel written under a pen name has been fined Â£1,000. Chris Gossage, a partner at London firm Russells, was also rebuked by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for breaking confidentiality rules. In July, Miss Rowling brought a court case against Gossage and his friend Judith Callegari, who revealed on Twitter that Miss Rowling had written The Cuckooâ€™s Calling as Robert Galbraith. Russells made a payment to charity after the court heard Rowling had been â€˜dismayed and distressedâ€™ by the â€˜betrayal of trustâ€™. The SRA published the decision on their website. It said: 'The SRA decided to issue Mr Christopher Gossage with a written rebuke and ordered him to pay a financial penalty of Â£1000.' They stated that 'by disclosing confidential information about a client to a third party Mr Gossage has breached Principles 4 and 6 of the SRA Principles 2011 and failed to achieve outcome 4.1 of the SRA Code of Conduct 2011.' The SRA website explains: 'Where we impose a sanction against a firm or individual, we are satisfied that they have failed to comply with our Principles. Where we are satisfied that a firm or individual has failed to comply with the SRA Principles, we may give a written rebuke. The maximum fine is Â£2,000. Principle 4 of the SRA rules is to 'act in the best interests of each client' while Principle 6 states that members should 'behave in a way that maintains the trust the public places in you and in the provision of legal services.' The Cuckooâ€™s Calling had sold just 1,500 copies, and attracted mixed reviews before Rowlingâ€™s authorship was revealed by The Sunday Times on July 14. The newspaper said it used a linguistics expert among others to analyse the debut novel. In fact the true identity had been disclosed by Gossage to his wifeâ€™s best friend, Judith Callegari, during a â€˜private conversationâ€™ over a dinner. The mother-of-two then revealed in a Twitter exchange with a journalist. Pseudonymously authored: The CuckooÂ¿s Calling had sold just 1,500 copies, and attracted mixed reviews before RowlingÂ¿s authorship was revealed by The Sunday Times on July 14 Russells apologised and said while Gossage accepted his own culpability, the disclosure was made 'in confidence to someone he trusted implicitly.' Rowling, who said she had wanted to release the book 'without hype or expectation,' accepted the donation from the firm to The Soldiersâ€™ Charity. Yesterday Russells was closed, and unable to comment. A sequel to The Cuckooâ€™s Calling is expected to be published this year. JK Rowlingâ€™s publicist was also unavailable.