A Thames Valley firm has been awarded an interim injunction against the owner of website Solicitors from Hell, which blacklists law firms and lawyers.

Gabbitas Robins, and one of the firm’s partners, Stephen Robins, won the injunction last week prohibiting site owner Rick Kordowski from publishing defamatory comments about the firm on the site.

Mr Justice Henriques said there is ‘a public interest in protecting the reputation of professional men of over 30 years’ high standing in a local community’.

Kordowski, who Henriques said has judgments against him in excess of £130,000, claimed that his website provides a service to the community and that there are ‘a significant number of incompetent and/or dishonest lawyers about whom the public should know’.

Henriques called on the Law Society and Bar Council to ‘consider some effective response to the conduct complained of in this case and in other similar cases’.

He said: ‘No doubt the legal profession does, on occasion, fail those who seek its services. However, many conscientious and highly reputable firms and individuals have found themselves as objects of offensive abuse and defamatory publication.’

A Law Society spokesman said the Society was ‘actively examining a range of possible options on how best to protect solicitors against these unjustified attacks’.

A Bar Council spokesman said that police had advised that its members should seek a civil remedy where appropriate.