Media Law: firm says move will avoid conflicts of interest

The media department at City firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain has taken the unusual step of deciding to focus exclusively on defence work 'to avoid eroding the media's right to report freely'.


Liz Hartley, head of the firm's 11-lawyer media department, said the decision to rule out advising claimants was taken because of the conflict of interest that arose when taking such cases against the press.


She said: 'The interests of a person who sues the media will naturally clash with the media's, and we do not want to place ourselves in a position where, in acting in a claimant's best interests, we would end up eroding the media's right to report freely.'


Ms Hartley said there were a number of live issues at present that were of great importance to the media, such as the right to report on matters of public interest and the way the case of Reynolds v Times Newspaper [1999] UKHL 45 - the leading authority on the defence of public interest - is being interpreted.


Another major issue, she said, was the use of conditional fee agreements in libel and privacy cases. 'We had to come off the fence,' she said.


Reynolds Porter Chamberlain has been involved in several high-profile cases on behalf of the media including Martha Greene v Associated Newspapers [2004] EWCA Civ 1462, defending an injunction in a libel action and protecting the newspaper's right to publish where it intended to prove the article was true, and Loutchansky v Times Newspapers [2002] EWLR 241 (CA).


The firm has also represented claimants such as Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative party leader, and former Prime Minister John Major.