Two tribunal defeats in a week should prompt the Solicitors Regulation Authority to step back from its three-year-old assault on so-called SLAPP (strategic litigation against public participation) practices, a leading media lawyer says today.
Writing in the Gazette today, Iain Wilson, managing partner of media firm Brett Wilson and vice chair of The Society of Media Lawyers, says that the 'regulatory assault' on defamation lawyers is doing more harm than good.
In 2022, the SRA revealed that it had opened more than 20 cases against firms being investigated for possible wrongdoing over SLAPP litigation. However this month the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal dismissed the only two cases to reach it over explicit SLAPP allegations.
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The prosecution of Hamlins partner Christopher Hutchings relating to an allegedly improper threat to an opponent solicitor in 2018 was dismissed following a six-day hearing. Meanwhile the SDT summarily threw out a prosecution of Carter-Ruck partner Claire Gill.
Wilson describes Gill's prosecution as particularly alarming, with 'seriously wide consequence for access to justice and the presumption of innocence'.
In any legal dispute, there will normally be a loser, but running a case in good faith should not put a lawyer in regulatory trouble, Wilson writes. 'Everyone has the right to representation, and it is not the role of a lawyer, journalist or regulator to undermine that.'
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