Solicitors need a support network
I read with interest the Gazette’s article highlighting the rise in threats, intimidation and violent behaviour experienced by practising solicitors, based on a Law Society survey (news, 28 November). The statistics – almost half of respondents receiving threats within the past year and more than one third fearing for their personal safety – sadly reflect what many of us on the frontline already know. The examples shared, including solicitors being confronted in car parks, threatened in hearings, and subjected to appalling abuse online and in person, demonstrate just how serious and widespread this issue has become.
Like many colleagues, our office staff have also been subjected to threats, intimidation, and aggressive behaviour from clients and their associates. These incidents, arising solely from our efforts to carry out our professional duties, have created an unsettling and challenging working environment.
As solicitors, we often find ourselves in the middle of highly charged situations and are increasingly absorbing the brunt of hostility from clients and others involved in the legal process.
I believe strongly that this cannot remain an issue referenced only through statistics or occasional reports. It needs to be brought out more widely, so that solicitors on the frontline understand that such behaviour is unacceptable and, more importantly, what can be done when it occurs. Many solicitors continue to suffer in silence due to embarrassment, fear of judgement or concerns about regulatory criticism, particularly when faced with intimidation, threats or fabricated online reviews.
Proactive, visible support is essential. In addition to clearer guidance and points of contact, I would like to suggest the creation of a dedicated support network for solicitors, a space where practitioners can safely and confidentially share their experiences, seek advice and find reassurance from others who understand the unique pressures of frontline legal work. Our profession can feel isolating and many are reluctant to raise these issues within their own firms.
A structured support network could help reduce that isolation, validate these experiences and provide a practical route for peer-to-peer support.
Solicitors need reassurance that the Law Society, the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the wider profession stand firmly behind them, and that prioritising personal safety will not result in negative consequences. A support network, combined with stronger messaging and practical guidance, could play a crucial role in achieving this. I would be interested to know if other solicitors would be interested in such an initiative.
Sajida Habib
Solicitor and partner, UK International Lawyers (UKIL) Ltd, Manchester
Consign Friday afternoon tactics to history
Those of you who practised in the ‘noughties’ will recall the whirr of the fax machine hailing the receipt of a missive from another firm. For those of us practising in litigation, Friday afternoons could be particularly fraught when that correspondence concerned one of our matters.
I had always wondered why such letters seemed to be sent late on a Friday afternoon, until my principal at the time informed me that it was a known tactic exploited by certain firms. If timed to perfection, the letter was guaranteed to be brought to the fee-earner’s attention before close of business for the week but leave insufficient time to take instructions and subsequently prepare a meaningful response.
This may have given the sending practitioner some sort of satisfaction ahead of the weekend, but what it most certainly did do was ruin the whole weekend of the receiving practitioner, who would not be able to get the matter out of their head until they were able to deal with it on the following Monday.
Thankfully, I no longer deal with litigation matters. However, with the advent of email and, dare I say, a concern for the mental health of our fellow lawyers, tactics such as this are now, hopefully, considered to be apocryphal stories told by those of a certain age.
As a partner in my current practice, I have had the misfortune of receiving two emails/letters from the Solicitors Regulation Authority informing us of an investigation into the firm. Both of those pieces of correspondence were received at some point on Friday; ensuring they would be seen by me, but without the time to fully absorb the contents or address the demands for information contained therein, meaning two weekends this year were ruined by the thought of an investigation.
I can see no reason why both communications could not have been delayed until the following Monday.
One email did at least contain a leaflet entitled ‘sources of support’, listing several organisations that can assist with mental health problems. This at least shows that the SRA has, however briefly, considered the effect of its correspondence, but to me it just flies in the face of the decision to send the emails on a Friday. I know what my dad would say about their gesture of providing us with support at the inception of an investigation – ‘it’s just words; meaningless words’.
I am not sure whether I have been the victim of an unfortunate coincidence or if this is a deliberate tactic employed by our regulator. Either way, it has to stop. I call upon the Law Society to ensure that this is brought up with the SRA to ensure that it never happens again.
I would be interested to learn whether any other practices or individuals have received correspondence from the SRA ostensibly employing tactics which should by now have been consigned to the history books.
Name and firm withheld on request
Push back against toxic rhetoric
The escalation of anti-lawyer rhetoric emanating from certain media outlets is not merely background noise; it is a direct and dangerous threat to the foundational principles of our justice system and the future of our profession.
We have recently witnessed high-profile incidents, from senior politicians targeting ‘activist judges’ and ‘activist lawyers’, to headlines that create a public environment where legal professionals, particularly those in immigration, criminal and motoring offence law, such as myself, are treated as morally compromised accessories to wrongdoing.
The core impact is a profound misunderstanding of the solicitor’s role. As legal representatives, our duty is not to endorse our clients’ alleged actions, but to ensure that due process is followed, that evidence is rigorously scrutinised, and that every individual, regardless of public opinion, has their legal rights upheld. This principle of robust representation is the bedrock of the rule of law.
Vilification fosters deep public mistrust, and it must be addressed. When the media attacks solicitors simply for using legal frameworks, it encourages the public to view the entire system with suspicion. This, in turn, can discourage vulnerable people from seeking the vital legal help they need at critical junctures in their lives, out of fear, stigma or confusion.
Perhaps the most insidious long-term consequence is the chilling effect on recruitment. I see this regularly as I expand my firm. The negative portrayal of solicitors who defend those accused of motoring or immigration offences, coupled with documented instances of harassment and threats against those in unpopular fields, is actively deterring the next generation of talented, principled and empathetic individuals from pursuing careers in these crucial areas. If the best and brightest shy away from immigration, asylum or criminal defence work due to the associated public opprobrium, who will be left to safeguard the rights of the accused and the marginalised?
All members of the profession must urgently push back against this toxic narrative. We must educate the public and policymakers alike: upholding the rule of law requires defending those who ensure its operation. A fair society demands that access to justice remains protected, and that means supporting – not undermining – the lawyers who make it possible.
Shazia Ali
Scarsdale Solicitors, Rochdale
Time for Lammy to reach for the Star?
May I respectfully suggest the reintroduction of an ancient English legal institution which was, sadly, abolished by the then reforming zeal of parliament in 1641: the Court of Star Chamber.
Staffed by privy councillors and judges, it brooked no backlogs. Sitting without a jury, it dealt with both civil and criminal cases at the required rate of knots. It sat in just one room in London beneath a star-spangled ceiling – no need then of ‘nightingale’, Crown or indeed any appellate court.
Perhaps a satellite Star Chamber Court might be considered for each English and Welsh circuit? Why stop there? Detailed research reveals that its sentencing powers extended to fines, imprisonment, whipping, branding and mutilation.
Hopefully, the lord chancellor’s advisers are hard at work devising cost-effective alternatives to short custodial terms; I particularly commend the three last-mentioned as a swift and inexpensive means of reducing our apparently burgeoning prison population.
The savings to the exchequer would be breathtaking, and the boost to the hospitality industry through its acquisition of redundant courtrooms nationwide (excluding Scotland) cannot be overstated.
The Star Chamber drew its authority directly from the monarch, and therein lies the difficulty. King Charles may take some persuading that this proposal is in the best interests of his loyal subjects, who may, quite irrationally, prefer to continue to be socially whipped, branded and mutilated by the considered verdict of their peers.
That said, who can doubt but that this is a great reforming lord chancellor? Move over, Mansfield (Lord, not Michael). Or, quite possibly, ‘Mutton dressed as Lammy’?
Alexander McCulloch
Solicitor, Haywards Heath
The value of juries
Most criminal advocates will have examples of the value of juries. Leaving the court, after my client was acquitted of burglary by a jury, we were told that the judge wanted to see us. Nervous that I had breached some arcane rule of the Crown court, we entered her chambers.
‘Gentlemen, did that verdict surprise you?’, she asked.
Before either of us could answer, she said, ‘because I thought the complainant did rather well in the witness box’. I ventured the possibility that this was because of the inadequacy of my cross-examination, but the prosecutor assured me that I had done a good job. As, I like to think, did the jury.
‘Well, he’s missed 18 months’ porridge,’ she concluded.
My client was a rough diamond; the account of the complainant was complete nonsense. The jury saw it; the judge didn’t. One worries about Mr Lammy’s reforms.
Joe Egan
President of the Law Society, 2017/18; director, Joe Egan Solicitors, Bolton
No good reason
The problem with jury trials, as I see it, is that the jury, alone of all tribunals, does not give a reason for its verdict.
Sometimes, of course, it would be difficult, as in the case of a perverse verdict of acquittal, in the face of a judicial ruling. Equally, it seems to me that no thought has been given to the knock-on effect of judge-only trials on the Court of Appeal.
Upon the assumption that the judge would give reasons, then, of course, his findings of fact could be more readily challenged in the Court of Appeal than the unknown findings of fact by a jury. That seems to me to open up more room for a blockage further up the line.
Tom Hayes’s appeal succeeded because the Supreme Court held that the judge had gone wrong. Had it not so found, then I doubt Mr Hayes could have succeeded.
Would it not make more sense to resurrect the special verdict (known to many of us from past studies of R v Dudley and Stephens [1884] 14 QBD 273, DC), so that the jury would be required to make its findings of fact known, for the judge then to apply the law? Would it also not make sense for such a jury to be composed of fewer than 12 jurors?
Michael Stannard
Verbier, Switzerland
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