The City of London Law Society today added to calls for the Solicitors Regulation Authority to review its approach to prosecuting allegedly abusive litigation, following high-profile failures. Society chair Colin Passmore accused the regulator of bowing to political and media pressure in pursuing so-called SLAPP cases.

According to the society, the regulator has failed to correctly identify where the boundary lies between legitimately advancing a client’s interests and abusive litigation. Passmore’s plea comes in an article for the Gazette co-authored by Kingsley Napley partner Iain Miller, chair of the society’s professional rules and regulation committee.

The SRA’s ill-fated pursuit of Carter-Ruck’s Claire Gill and media lawyer Ashley Hurst, whose tribunal conviction was overturned on appeal, ‘have left its SLAPPs strategy in disarray’, the pair claim. ‘The cases expose fundamental flaws in the regulator’s current stance on conduct within litigation and risk imposing a “chilling effect” on solicitors’ ability to advance clients’ rights,’ they add. ‘The Legal Services Act sets out a series of objectives by which the SRA is required to frame its decision-making, which includes protecting and promoting the public interest; supporting the constitutional principle of the rule of law; and improving access to justice.

The SRA should consult on how it will approach this balancing exercise to ensure it has a proper framework for deciding which cases to investigate.’

The review should include the SRA’s role in investigating conduct relating to live proceedings, the society said.