Appeal lodged against High Court’s takedown of Solicitors from Hell, ICO tells Law Society CEO Des Hudson ‘to live with consumer criticism of lawyers’

Appeal lodged against High Court’s decision to remove Solicitors from Hell website from internet. SOLICITORS FROM HELL (SfH) is back in the news for 2012 after its owner, Rick Kordowski revealed he has filed an appeal against the recent High Court decision by Hon. Mr Justice Michael Tugendhat in the case of The Law Society, Hine Solicitors & Kevin McGrath & a cast of others v Rick Kordowski to grant the Law Society of England & Wales its injunction for the removal of the now well known Solicitors from Hell website which allowed clients & consumers to rate their solicitors & post reviews of their experiences with law firms & lawyers from across the UK.

Diary of Injustice reported on the legal action taken by the Law Society of England & Wales against Mr Kordowski and his website:  ‘SolicitorsFromHELL.co.uk’ in November 2011, here : Solicitors From Hell removed from internet as UK High Court grants injunction to Law Society of England & Wales to censor client reviews of lawyers

The injunction, secured by Hugh Tomlinson QC and Sara Mansoori of Matrix Chambers as announced on Brett Wilson LLP’s blog, followed a successful application for judgment in default against Mr Rick Kordowski, the owner of the SfH website. The full judgement in the case can be read here : The Law Society, Hine Solicitors & Kevin McGrath v Rick Kordowski

Speaking late last week, Mr Kordowski said : “I was tempted to leave it and let it go down in  history as one of the most ‘archaic’ judgments of all time. However, now that the Law Society of England and Wales  have been served with the necessary paperwork, this judgment and order is in  the process of being formally appealed.”

Mr Kordowski said : “The individuals who accompanied the Law Society  on the claim against me failed to follow the Pre-Action protocol code. I am also perplexed to why these individuals had not (and still haven’t)  contact me to ask who the authors of the words complained about were.”

Mr Kordowski has also indicated he will take the case all the way to the European Court if he loses the latest appeal in the UK Courts. Mr Kordowski said that in the event of his appeal being  turned down by the higher appeal court here in the UK, with the help of legal advice provided by the mainstream media, he will take this  case to the European Court in Strasbourg where he feels he will receive a fairer hearing and a more ‘balanced’ approach to the matter.

Lawyers & their grudges ? Law Society Chief Executive Desmond Hudson Des Hudson the £400K-A-YEAR Chief Executive of the Law Society of England & Wales who pursued the SfH website through the courts at huge cost to members, commented in a Press Release at the time of the High Court’s decision : “This website has served simply as a vehicle for pursuing personal grudges and vendettas against conscientious and reputable firms and legal professionals. Far from being of any help to consumers, it has been a danger. Some excellent firms have been listed on the website, and exclusion from the site has more often than not been a matter of whether a firm has been prepared to pay a fee to have the listing removed. I feared the website was directing people in real need of help away from professionals best placed to assist them.”

However, it has come to light Mr Hudson and the Law Society received little joy from their attempts to involve the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in their battle to remove the Solicitors from Hell website from the internet, raising further questions over the High Court’s decision to side with the vested interests of the legal profession out to block their own client’s right of free speech to rate and review the service provided by UK based lawyers & law firms.

Diary of Injustice has been passed a copy of a letter from the Information Commissioner Christopher Graham to Desmond Hudson, CEO of the Law Society. The Information Commissioner’s office confirmed the letter as genuine and said they had no objection to it being published in full. The letter can be downloaded HERE

Law Society is told to live with criticism and ‘censoring online comments against lawyers is not a job for the Information Commissioner’ In the letter, Christopher Graham, the  Information Commissioner said to the Law Society’s Chief Executive, Mr Hudson : “We have looked at the website and agree that some of the content that individuals have posted about solicitors is highly offensive, although some of it does strike me as representing, on the face of it, credible accounts of the experiences that some individuals may have had of their solicitors.The inclusion of the ‘domestic purposes exemption in the Data Protection Act (s.36) is intended to balance the individual’s right to respect for his/her private life with the right to freedom of expression. These rights are equally important and I am strongly of the view that this is not the purpose of the DPA to regulate an individual’s right to freedom of expression – even where the individual uses a third party website, rather than his own facilities, to exercise this.”

“The situation would clearly be impossible where the Information Commissioner to be expected to rule on what it is acceptable for one individual to say about another, be that a solicitor or another individual. This is not what my Office is established to do. This is particularly the case where other legal remedies are available – for example, the law of libel or incitement.”

“There is still a considerable lack of certainty concerning the extent to which website operators are legally responsible for the content they host, Although solicitorsfromhell/Mr Kordowski may well be a data controller, and is indeed registered as such, the instigators of the website;’s content are generally private individuals expressing their own views. Their activity attracts the s.36 exemption, which emanates ultimately from Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.”

“In giving due weight to freedom of expression in cases like this we have to accept that enforcing the data protection principles in respect of the activities of the website owner is likely to entail a disproportionate level of interference with the rights of the contributors, however unpleasant their contributions may be.”

“We also have to accept that contributing to, and using, ratings and customer feedback sites – of variable quality – has become an established part of consumers’ online behaviour.”

Others also question the High Court’s decision to side with the Law Society and grant the removal of the Solicitors from Hell website from public view after it became known the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) is also to embark on a similar strategy of naming & shaming solicitors & law firms who fail their clients, a fact reported by Diary of Injustice in early November 2011, here : Scots to be ‘kept in dark’ on details of crooked lawyers while Legal Ombudsman’s ‘naming & shaming’ policy ‘will protect’ consumers in England & Wales.

So, the battle is on to restore Solicitors from Hell to the internet, and thus restore the right of consumers across the country to freely comment on and rate the services of their legal representatives, just like all other consumers purchasing products & services across the land.

In the meantime new websites have emerged to allow clients to post their opinions about lawyers :

COWBOYSOLICITORS.COM, a new website to allow consumers to rate their lawyer online. While the battle for Solicitors From Hell looks set to continue all the way to the European Courts, a host of new websites offering consumers the chance to air their views of how they were served by their legal representatives have emerged, the latest one being COWBOYSOLICITORS.COM. The new website, which is free to become a member of, states Solicitors have ruled the roost for far too long, the law society is completely bias against any complaints. The truth is that many UK legal practices are filth ridden and need exposing. Become a free member and start shaming your solicitor within minutes. Manage all listings from your personalized dashboard.

Solicitors from Hell 2 has returned to replace the original Solicitors from Hell website. The new Solicitors from Hell 2 website which is registered in the USA, and is thus outwith the reach of UK Libel laws, replaces the now censored Solicitors from Hell. As before, clients can rate their solicitors and document their experiences whether good or bad although this time, it may be more difficult for the Law Society to act. The new website states : Solicitors From Hell 2 will allow people to upload articles about Solicitors from within the UK or anywhere else in the world this will be done automatically & free of charge. Should a complaint arise we will require evidence to substantiate your complaint. or the removal of the offending post or words will take place. This will be at the sole discretion of Solicitors From Hell 2 editors. Further should anyone claim that any item is defamatory and can prove the information wrong then the post will be removed free of charge.

So those of you looking for an opportunity to name & shame your poorly performing or even crooked lawyer, there is now even more choice to do so, courtesy of the Law Society’s attack on UK consumers right of free speech.

Information Commissioner’s Office clarifies FOI law on ‘official business’ information held in private email accounts, texts. Scotland to follow ?

Sneaky exchanges between civil servants, politicians & those in public bodies via private or secret email accounts can be revealed through FOI. SNEAKS in Government, Local Government public bodies & public services who use private email facilities to discuss official business in attempts to avoid the information leaking out through Freedom of Information legislation have now been told in no uncertain terms by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) that information concerning official business held in private email accounts is subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

However, as the Guardian newspaper reports, the ICO’s move which brings Ministers private emails and text messages within the scope of FOI has angered politicians at Westminster who are now fearful Freedom of Information laws appear (to them) to be allowing too much openness following the latest ruling. The Guardian goes onto report “The chairman of the public administration committee, Bernard Jenkin, is understood to be considering a select committee inquiry next year in the wake of the recent ruling by Christopher Graham, the information commissioner.”

Currently there is no clarification from the Scottish Information Commissioner on how the ICO’s ruling on private emails affects FOI in Scotland, however, as they say, there’s no time like the present to test it out, particularly as it appears the practice of using private, secret, & throw-away email accounts by civil servants & certain ‘advisers’ to the Scottish Government appears widespread…

Commenting on the ICO ruling, Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said: “It should not come as a surprise to public authorities to have the clarification that information held in private email accounts can be subject to Freedom of Information law if it relates to official business. This has always been the case – the Act covers all recorded information in any form.

Mr Graham continued : “It came to light in September that this is a somewhat misunderstood aspect of the law and that further clarification was needed. That’s why we’ve issued new guidance today with two key aims – first, to give public authorities an authoritative steer on the factors that should be considered before deciding whether a search of private email accounts is necessary when responding to a request under the Act. Second, to set out the procedures that should generally be in place to respond to requests. Clearly, the need to search private email accounts should be a rare occurrence; therefore, we do not expect this advice to increase the burden on public authorities.”

Key points set out in the guidance include:

Where a public authority has decided that a relevant individual’s email account may include official information which falls within the scope of the request and is not held elsewhere, it will need to ask that individual to search their account.

Where people are asked to check private email accounts, there should be a record of the action taken. The public authority needs to be able to demonstrate, if required, that appropriate searches have taken place.

Although the main emphasis of the guidance is on official information held in private email accounts, public authorities should be aware that the law covers information recorded in any form

Public authorities should remind staff that deleting or concealing information with the intention of preventing its disclosure following receipt of a request is a criminal offence under section 77 of the Act.

It is accepted that, in certain circumstances, it may be necessary to use private email for public authority business. There should be a policy which clearly states that in these cases an authority email address should be copied in to ensure the completeness of the authority’s records.

Mr Graham continued: “As part of our work on understanding more generally how FOI handling works across government, we conducted a good practice visit at the Department for Education. We’ve today published the findings of that visit and are now keen to carry out similar visits to other Whitehall departments. Work on specific complaints made to the Commissioner about the Department of Education’s handling of individual FOI requests is still ongoing. We hope to issue our decisions on these cases early in the New Year.”

So, next time readers & FOI’ers do requests to the Scottish Government, local authorities, public bodies and so on, you may want to ask for any information contained in private email facilities used by those in the relevant organisations which relate to the business or subject access of your FOI request…

A Diary of Injustice for 2012

Changes to Diary of Injustice for 2012. DIARY OF INJUSTICE during 2012 and for the foreseeable future, will be written & managed by journalists in consultation with Peter Cherbi, the independent law journalist who started this site in January 2006 with an aim to report on injustice in Scotland and the justice system from the point of view of consumers. If you have a story relating to a legal problem you have with the justice system, your solicitor or something you feel should be reported in the media, please send your details to scottishlawreporters@gmail.com upon which someone from the team will get back to you. If readers want an article published, original documentation relating to your case will have to be provided to back up any statements.

Readers should note the web address of Diary of Injustice will remain unchanged, due to the volume of information on the site containing links to previous articles and other information.

2012 New Year message from Scotland : Become the hunter and not the hunted. Stand your ground & rise up to those who cause you injustice

Happy New Year 2012 to readers & campaigners fighting injustice in Scotland & around the world. EVER EAGER to stand up for itself and survive is the garden visitor which has been picking off the habitually greedy fat pigeons that eat all the food put out for the smaller birds to survive. Of course, you just know the visiting raptor might well have a few of those small birds if things get tough but the fat greedy pigeons who never miss a chance to take everything stand out – they are much easier to spot, a bit like those in the community who hide behind a cloak of respectability, surviving by taking over other people’s livelihoods, possessions, splitting up families, even taking life itself, and ultimately making death a business of personal plunder, for profit to pay for their own lifestyles. You all know who I mean.

During last year, 2011, I received many contacts from people who were depressed, at their wits end, some at the end of their life and all because of the trust they had placed in politicians, public servants, banks, doctors, self-branded ‘financial experts’, debt advisers, and of course, members of the legal profession who were brought in to resolve legal problems yet ended up taking more from their clients than they put in.

Some people spoke of committing suicide because of what had been done to them, yet no help was on offer and everyone in authority turned a blind eye to their predicament. Some were at the end of their tether over the lack of help they were receiving from people elected to office who are supposed to be ‘public servants’ and a growing number of people felt there was no hope left to them, that life was not worth living after solicitors and the legal profession had ripped through their lives leaving a path of destruction it is simply not possible to recover from.

For those of you in Scotland and around the world whose lives are held hostage to injustice, whether the injustice is at the hands and actions of prejudicial self-serving & self-motivated politicians, an unjust, corrupt justice system and those within it, or at the brutal hands of a profession or vested interests, make 2012 a turning point by doing something about it. Take back your lives and make a start by publishing your story of injustice, naming & shaming those who commit these crimes and injustice against you. Protest if you like, as it is your right to do, tell your fellow man and do whatever you can all within the law. Do something, don't do nothing.

Wherever you are, make 2012 your spring by breaking out of the perpetual winter handed to you by those who clothe their naked villainy with old odd ends, stolen forth from you by unjust writ, and seem a saint when most they play the devil.