News in brief: week beginning 29 September 2014

Harrassment from clients, banking charges, mergers and fundamental dishonesty

BARRISTERS

Celebrity attraction: High-flying human rights barrister, Amal Alamuddin, of Doughty Street Chambers, has apparently married an actor. That is all.

SOLICITORS

Hellish client: An unnamed law firm has won a High Court injunction against a former client who set up websites about the firm with its name in the URL. The High Court defined former client Daniel Beach's actions as harassment. After publishing a defamatory post about the firm on the infamous SolicitorsFromHell.co.uk website, Beach then registered a series of domain names incorporating the firm's name, alleging corruption, failure to act in clients' interests, conflict of interest and untruthfulness. The injunction requires removal of the offending material from the internet and prohibits its reinstatement, and restrains the defendant from harassing partners and staff of the firm.

CONSUMERS

Banking charges: A former customer of Lloyds Bank has won a claim over unfair overdraft charges, which could open the floodgates for a billion-pound payout to other customers. Oliver Foster-Burnell took his £743 overdraft charges reclaim to court with pro bono help from law firm Howlett Clarke, LegalBeagles, and barrister Tom Brennan. A judge at Taunton County Court ruled the bank was wrong to levy rising fees on Foster-Burnell's account after he had gone only £2.67 over his overdraft limit. Lloyds was ordered to repay the charges, plus interest. Foster-Burnell was also awarded an additional £1,000 in damages, after the bank applied a related incorrect default to his credit file.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Office expansion: Weightmans has announced that it is to significantly expand its Glasgow office in the coming months as it welcomes the first wave of recruitment, with three new partners to join the existing two. Further new starters will build a team of ten fee earners plus support staff, bringing with them experience from a cross section of areas such as insurance, real estate and employment.

INSURANCE

Costs shift: Admiral Insurance is celebrating a court ruling that a claimant had been 'fundamentally dishonest' when making a whiplash claim against one of its customers. The judge agreed there was no contact between the vehicles and the claimant should pay Admiral's customer's costs of £6,000. Admiral head of claims, Lorna Connelly, said: "We hope it sends a warning that a dishonest individual could have a very significant cost liability should they pursue a case against us as the judiciary are willing to make findings of fundamental dishonesty. It will also hopefully make solicitors think twice before bringing these cases to court in the first place."

REGULATOR

Practice rights: ILEX Professional Standards (IPS), the independent regulator of members of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx), has opened applications for CILEx fellows wishing to gain practice rights in immigration and litigation. Chartered legal executives will be able to seek authorisation to conduct litigation with associated advocacy rights in criminal, civil or family fields, or provide immigration services, without supervision by an authorised person such as a solicitor. The new rights are open to fellows of CILEx, who once approved will be able to call themselves chartered legal executive litigators and advocates, or chartered legal executive immigration practitioners.

MERGER

Regional union: Law firms Spratt Endicott Solicitors and Alfred Truman Solicitors have announced that they have merged. Together, the firms provide a full range of services across ten departments, including commercial and corporate law, dispute resolution, employment and debt recovery. The two companies will now trade together, employing over 100 people, and will have a combined turnover of £6m. The company plans to grow the business by 15 per cent each year and invest in continuing to develop staff. The newly merged firm will be known as Spratt Endicott Truman Solicitors.

FAMILY

Legal aid: Publicly funded private family law cases fell by 83 per cent between April and June 2014, according to new government figures. In first quarter of 2014/15, the combined number of completed certificates for private law Children Act proceedings, financial provision and other family proceedings stood at 10,227. In sharp contrast, the number of certificates granted for the same period stood at 2366. Lawyer-Supported Mediation points out that the ratio between the two totals underlines how LASPO will 'decimate' casework levels in the years ahead.

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Training contracts: Riverview Law has launched its first solicitor training scheme, awarding seven training contracts to current members of staff. In the summer of 2015 the firm will commence the application process for up to ten more training contracts, offered to existing employees at Riverview Law. Training contracts at Riverview Law are only available to team members who have been with Riverview Law for at least six months.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Celebrity trolling: Billionaire Donald Trump has said he may sue a Twitter user who tricked him into retweeting an image of British serial killers Fred and Rose West. Trump shared a spoof tweet that claimed the killers looked at him as a 'big inspiration' and asked him to 'RT for their memory'. Trump later tweeted: "Some jerk fraudulently tweeted that his parents said I was a big inspiration to them + pls RT-out of kindness I retweeted. Maybe I'll sue."

CONSUMERS

Rogue traders: Under the new Consumer Protection (Amendment) Regulations 2014, effective this month, consumers who have been victims of misleading or aggressive sales practices can demand a full refund, if they act within 90 days, or a discount on the price. If the unfair practice caused them additional loss, they may be able to claim damages.

PERSONAL INJURY

Business development: A legal comparison website and the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) have announced a co-operative deal to help clients identify the best personal injury lawyer for their needs. The Access Solicitor website has more than 20,000 lawyers on file. It will draw on APIL's personal injury expertise to optimise the architecture of its on-site legal guides and specialist personal injury lawyer selection tools. Further, Access Solicitor will endorse the APIL accreditation as a specialist quality mark to victims of personal injury.

SOLICITORS

Vulnerable clients: Six members of staff at Gordon Brown Law Firm have completed a sign language qualification in order to provide legal support to the deaf and deaf-blind community. In partnership with Newcastle College, the firm has developed a four year in-house training programme which was offered to staff on a voluntary basis. Gordon Brown has also pledged its commitment to funding the next stage of training.

ABS

Accountants licensed: Kingston Smith has become the first accountancy firm to be licenced as an Alternative Business Structure (ABS) by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) in order to carry out probate work. This comes just a month after the ICAEW became the first non-legal body to be able to regulate a reserved legal service (probate) and a licensing authority for ABSs.

ABS

Big four: KPMG has announced that it has become the first 'Big Four' professional services firm to be awarded an Alternative Business Structure (ABS) licence by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to operate on a multidisciplinary practice basis.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

New chief: The Co-operative Legal Services (CLS), the legal subsidiary of the Co-operative Group, has announced the appointment of Ian Powell to the role of marketing and business development director. Powell has been the business development and communications director at Irwin Mitchell for 15 years and will join CLS in November.