Solicitor settles action against solicitorsfromhell
A north-east solicitor yesterday settled his libel claim against the owner of a website that blacklists solicitors and law firms.
Scott Eason, principal at Eason Law, had instructed libel lawyers Carter-Ruck to bring a claim for damages of between £50,000 and £100,000 and obtain a High Court injunction against Rick Kordowski, who runs solicitorsfromhell.co.uk.
Under the terms of a High Court order, Eason agreed to drop his claim for damages and costs if Kordowski removed allegations against Eason and Eason Law from the internet; undertook never again to publish allegations referring to Eason or his firm; and will write to Eason to apologise.
Carter-Ruck said in a statement yesterday: ‘Scott Eason has today settled his libel action against Rick Kordowski, owner of the website Solicitors from Hell. Mr Kordowski has removed the false and defamatory allegations from his website, agreed not to publish them again and apologised to Mr Eason.’
Eason said in a statement released by Carter-Ruck yesterday: ‘I am happy and relieved that this case has now settled. I felt very strongly about what was published about me and I could not allow the allegations to remain on the internet.
‘I initially wrote to Mr Kordowski myself asking for the allegations to be taken down, but he refused to do this without payment. As a matter of principle, I refused to pay Mr Kordowski any money and he left me with no option but to issue libel proceedings against him.
‘I am glad that Mr Kordowski has accepted the allegations are false, taken them down from his website and apologised to me.’
Kordowski said today that he will not delete complaints about ‘Premium Players’ unless the person who made the original post or a High Court judge asks him to do so. Complainants do not have to pay to post on the site, but if they feel strongly about their story, they can pay £25 to have the firm listed as a ‘Premium Player,’ as long as their posting contains information that is useful to the public, Kordowski said. If listed as a premium player, a solicitor or firm cannot pay to have the posting removed, he added.
Kordowski’s apology to Eason will read: ‘I would like to apologise for allowing defamatory allegations about you made by a third party to be posted on my website solicitorsfromhell.co.uk. I did not know at the time of publication that the allegations were false, but I now understand that they are. On that basis, they should never have been published.
‘I have taken the allegations down from my website and agreed not to republish anything about you or your firm again. I understand that, as I have no funds, you have kindly agreed to waive your entitlement to damages and costs.
‘I am sorry for the embarrassment and distress the allegations have caused you to suffer.’
See also
Comments
Another remedy needed?
So, he will not take down posts unless there is High Court litigation, at the same time making clear he has no money. The only way to deal with this potential menace is to test whether or not he is personally liable for any defamatory postings, or is, as he asserts, a mere conduit. If that is tested, and he is liable, then this business model is one that ought to be injuncted. The Law Society of England and Wales ought to test this in the courts on behalf of its member firms.
Complain complain complain
Perhaps the LSB could take over the running of the website in order to more enable people who haven't got a clue about the law to complain about firms and solicitors who are usually doing their very best to help them, just in case they misread or more likely couldn't be bothered to read the client care letter sent to them from the law firm, detailing the complaints procedure under the heading HOW TO MAKE A COMPLAINT etc...
Comments About Solicitors
With more and more use of social media and people being able to post comments on a variety of websites, from legal ones to Twitter or personal blogs, we are likely to see more and more postings about solicitors.
Rather than going into the details of this case, the interesting part for me/my clients is looking at clients wanting to provide feedback about good or bad service. Whereas in the past this used to take place only face to face, where a disgruntled client might tell one or two people about a good service, maybe twice as many about a perceived bad service, now they can make a blog comment or make a post on twitter and suddenly their experience is posted for thousands of eyes to see.
Forrester, the online research agency, predicts that Social Media will be more important than corporate websites by 2011/2012. I believe this means that whilst now most people will research their choice of solicitor by looking on the firm's website, in future they will be able to find more and more postings about the firm on other people's websites, twitter, LinkedIn etc. It makes it all the more important not only to provide a great service which I know many firms do, but to educate clients about how their matters will proceed and why the service they are receiving is so good.
It also means using tools such as search.twitter.com to see what people are saying about your firm already so that you can ensure no bad comments are making their way onto the internet, or if they are, you can quickly have them removed if they have no grounds. We all operate in a far more transparent marketplace now.
Nick Jervis
Solicitor (non-practising)
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If solicitors did their job
If solicitors did their job properly thre would be very few complaints.In my experiance most are very poor at there job but all charge large amounts for what amounts to nothing.Take for instance a solicitors letter that cost a three figure sum and you could write yourself.Or wacking great fees and massive delays in getting compensation for the most simple cases that you could have done and completed in the County Court in a quarter of the time at a twenteth of the cost.Legal matters ,I do it all myself now Solicitors complete waste of money.
If solicitors did their job...
In your "experiance most are very poor at there job", are they? And precisely how many solicitors' firms have you used in order to justify that sweeping statement? You are clearly a troll with a massive chip on your shoulder. Maybe the savings you make on solicitors' fees you should put towards an education? Until then, with such woeful reasoning, spelling and grammar, I only hope that you never attempt to represent anyone else on legal matters. Hopefully, we'll meet in court one day and I'll then have the opportunity to show you exactly what a solicitor is for.
Simon - it's actually pompous
Simon - it's actually pompous people like you, who clearly like looking down your nose at other people, who get the profession a bad name
Get Great Comments And Plenty of Them
Any law firm should be getting every client to say positive things i.e. testimonials
online, offline, in emails, audio, video, letters and make it part of a process.
Outweighing any negative comments with positive comments is the way to go.
If you aren't getting a positive comment from every client in one way or another then think how you can get one. It's not difficult you just have to ask in the right way.
Those that publicly say you are a great company to deal with are more likely to be loyal and act as good referrers so it makes sense to help them become so.
Rather than going into the
Rather than going into the details of this case, the interesting part for me/my clients is looking at clients wanting to provide feedback about good or bad service. Whereas in the past this used to take place only face to face, where a disgruntled client might tell one or two people about a good service, maybe twice as many about a perceived bad service,ccna now they can make a blog comment or make a post on twitter and suddenly their experience is posted for thousands of eyes to see
A balanced view
What the majority of people are looking for I think is is good solicitors- they don't want to know who the bad ones are- they just want to find a good one. Websites such as solicitor.info take a much more balanced view - highlighting good feedback (as this appears first in any searches) Surly this is a win - win situation for good solicitors and the general public.
Are Solicitors wort it?
ian is absolutely right-Sillyicitors are expensive and a waste of money. ian should continue to do all his own legal work himself and may even consider offering lagal advice to anyone willing to engage his services.
He could also take up plumbing, electrical wiring, car maintenance, heart surgery, teeth extraction and, if he sticks an old cardboard box in the corner of his living room and cuts a hole in it, he could sit in it and produce his own News and entertainment programmes.
One is not obliged to use a Solicitor(or any other trade or profession), so ian, don't bother.
Hit a nerve there i
Hit a nerve there i think......
@AM Robinson Your command of
@AM Robinson
Your command of English is atrocious, is it because solicitors are very intelligent or are you just plainly jealous that you never concentrated at school, hope you never require the services of a solicitor in the near future, good luck in whatever choice of proffession you make but from the list you made their must be something out there for you.
@AM Robinson. No need for
@AM Robinson. No need for capital " E " in english and only one F in profession.Talk about shoot yorself in the foot.HA! HA!
@AM Robinson. No need for
@AM Robinson. No need for capital " E " in english and only one "F" in profession.Talk about shoot yourself in the foot.HA! HA!
Here we go again! Your
Here we go again! Your desperate attempts to score cheap, pedantic, ad hominem hits during what might otherwise be an interesting discussion makes me embarassed to be a solicitor. It only serves to make us all look like petty, bickering children rather than like rational adults discussing the matter at hand. Is that the best you can do? I hope you're all proud.
client care letter
Somebody on here says clients should read their client care letter more carefully, er..............what if you were never sent a client care letter? and you did not know that you were supposed to have one, after all the solicitors are the qualified ones who should know the rules, not the client.
Resolving Client Complaints
The sort of person with whom a difference can be sorted out by rational discussion, as you suggest, is not the sort of person who posts the rabid, irrational and semi-coherent type of nonsense usually found on your website
Welcome to our world
Someone writing nasty untrue comments about you that question your professional ability to do the job are they? Not a pleasant experience is it?
AP with 9 years experience.