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According to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, any lawyers attempting to steamroller people accused of libel into paying money before a case goes to court could be breaking their code of practice.
This is known in the legal world as ‘speculative invoicing’ and it very much looks like McAlpine’s lawyer – Andrew Reid from law firm RMPI – could be indulging in it. The firm has set up a website which ‘accepts’ apologies and money from Twitter users who have been scared into thinking they might be sued for libel.
Here’s a more detailed legal explanation of what Reid is doing:
solicitors from hell – andrew reid
It seems to me, the only thing enabling McAlpine and his bully boy solicitors to get away with this kind of behaviour is the public’s ignorance of legal matters.
So to remedy that – please share this information as much as possible. Thank you.
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Related articles:
Justice? McAlpine gets hundreds of thousands in compensation while child victims get next to nothing
I hope Lord McAlpine isn’t going to sue me for saying this?
Why are UK police helping McAlpine sue twitter users when he’s a tax exile in Italy?
Lord McAlpine in his own damning words – The New Machiavelli?
It was the police – not the BBC – who wrongly named Lord McAlpine in abuse allegations
How did Cyril Smith get away with paedophilia? By threatening tweeters and bloggers with libel!
Child abuse scandal can of worms – just who is Daily Mail reporter David Rose?
High level child abuse cover-up? Why has Theresa May barred a US journalist from the UK?
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By the way, if you click on any of these buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people. Thanks:
Pride's Purge 
*innocent face*
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Having been at the sharp end of legal sharp practice I knew all along this was a scam, best thing to do is to stand up to the bullies and see them in court, then you’ll see them backing off, works every time.
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As the claim would be one of defamation, it could presumably not be started in the County Court or via Money Claim Online – it would need to be started in the High Court even if both parties agreed it should subsequently be moved to the CC.
Whilst neither “Lord” Muck Alpine nor his lawyers need prove that any allegation said to have been made was false, they would need to show that the defendant had posted the words forming the basis of the complaint. To get that “proof”, they’d first need Twitter to divulge the IP addresses used and then get the service providers to state to which of their customers those IP addresses had been assigned at the time – and that assumes that no false trail had been laid by someone using a proxy service of some kind.
If this discovery process took more than a year from the date that the allegedly defamatory remarks were made, any action would probably be out of time – see section 5 of the Defamation Act 1996 – http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/31/section/5
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It wouldn’t be the first time he was in breach
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Pingback: Are McAlpine’s lawyers breaking the solicitors’ code of practice? » Philosophers stone | Philosophers stone
I’ve also been at the sharp end of one of these things.
After various people (me included) ridiculed somebody’s blog, her solicitor sent a pre-action letter to another guy, and in that pre-action letter stated that I too should be coming forward with an offer of damages and costs. Presumably this was included in the letter so that the defendant would pass the message to me.
He did indeed pass me the message, so I phoned a solicitor to ask if I ought to be responding to it. His advice was, “If they’re doing that, it means they don’t know your address. Just sit below the parapet and do nothing.”
It turned out to be good advice, because I’ve never heard anything from the claimant or her solicitor since. Hard to interpret it as anything other than an attempt at a drive-by money shakedown.
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It’s a bit like playing poker, most of it is bluff to see who crumbles. I’ve always armed myself with facts and evidence and when they see that they know the game is up.
Rule of thumb, never give out more information than you need to and sitting tight was the best thing you could do.
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I went full-scale so-sue-me-bitch http://shrink4men.blogspot.com
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It is accepted to some degree that the normal process of identifying ‘offenders’ via the courts would take time and be costly. To that extent, there might have been some understanding in these unusual circumstances of the way the solicitors are going about this.
However, what is wrong in this case is two main things. First is the assumption of guilt and no identification or clarification of the wrong doing in each case. When this presumption is assumed and conducted on such a mass of potential defendants there is a danger of the admininstration of justice being brought into disrepute. Potentially demanding money from hundreds or thousands of individuals in cases which are untested before the courts run the same risk as those of the speculative invoice lawyers which conducted litigation in an arguably similar fashion several years ago.
What tips the balance clearly against RMPI is the alleged £50K demand from Sally Bercow, That indicates clearly to the public and the courts that there is little or no appreciation of the danger of over compensation for Mr Reid’s client. Are they going to demand £50K off each high profile tweeter. 20 x £50K = £1 Million – or perhaps even more?
And on top of the £310,000 already received – which may be deemed to be sufficient compensation and vindication already?.
You cannot demand such sums from individuals as though their contribution was the sole or main cause of the damage. As judges have observed before, any damages in the case of numerous multiple defendants need to be assessed in the ’round’ and the affect of all tweets/posts combined. Previous settlements (i.e £310,000) need to be taken into account or it becomes a legal free for all. It is this apparent lack of appreciation and judgement which confirms to many that it is now the responsibility of the High Court to intervene at the very first opportunity to restrain Lord McAlpine and his legal representitves.
Such intervention is for the benefit of all, including Mr Reid’s law firm. In my view it would be better still if he urgently reassess his position now and contacts his regulator and client at the soonest opportunity to take advice or seek guidance. There are several precedants for behaviour which is incorrect and unfair which clearly show the risk he runs if this litigation continues in its present form. This litigation is being conducted in the public eye and the reputation of the whole legal profession is at stake and one would hope he finally starts to realise this. The ball is firmly in the court of Mr Reid and his law firm.
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Several weeks ago I contacted the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) about this. The reason I wrote to them was because I have previously witnessed the terrible toll on members of the public from receiving letters of claim from various law firms. The first example I will mention was the letter writing campaign conducted by lawyers which have since been disciplined for ‘speculative invoicing’. Which Magazine took up the matter on behalf of the many victims of these letters demanding sums of money from them.
If Which Magazine were involved you know the concerns are credible,
Not only that, the SRA later acted against these law firms and a senior High Court judge condemned the practice.
This is what Judge Birss, said about the practice of speculative invoicing:
………
“Whether it was intended to or not, I cannot imagine a system better designed to create disincentives to test the issues in court. Why take cases to court and test the assertions when one can just write more letters and collect payments from a proportion of the recipients”?
……….
Perhaps the SRA had a quiet word with RMPI since their earlier use of the media to pressurise people, hence their relative silence since. But then we had the claim issued to Mrs Bercow, supposely for £50,000. This reignited my concern which brings me to my second example of this type of litigation.
This was the appalling affect of letters sent by a top 250 law firm to around 30 individuals for alleged libel a few years ago. All those cases were thrown out by the courts but not until several people had suffered appalling distress and handed over large sums of money under extreme pressure. That case is actually quite similar to this in many ways, hence my interest in not wishing to see a repeat.
This is the standard response I received from the SRA. In my experience the SRA are quite good and will take action where appropriate. My e-mail to them at the time was not really a complaint designed to get any one into trouble. It was more an appeal for them to monitor this litigation and step in should matters get out of hand – because I could see where this was potentially leading. I have seen the damage and often untold consequences of unrestrained mass litigation so would urge everyone reading this article to send a brief e-mail with a few lines to the following:
Solicitors Regulation Authority
Phone: 0121 329 6824
Report@sra.org.uk
http://www.sra.org.uk
Professional conduct
Report about Andrew Stephen Reid of RMPI LLP
Thank you for your email of 17 November 2012 giving us information about the above.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s (“SRA”) purpose is to set, maintain and secure standards of professional behaviour from the firms and individuals we regulate and information such as this helps us swiftly to identify risks to the public.
We will carefully assess the information you have provided along with any other related information we hold, to decide whether we should take action or make further enquiries. If we need to seek further information from you we will contact you again.
We regret that we do not provide updates on our enquiries, partly because our enquiries may include confidential information but also because we try to devote our limited resources to taking the actions necessary to protect the public. However, when we do take formal action, the results are usually published on our website.
We cannot offer legal advice, or help with court action. If you need further advice, please see http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights.
Even if the information you have provided does not lead to immediate regulatory action, it will be retained and would be reconsidered if further information about the firm or individual were received.
Please note that the SRA has no powers to award you financial compensation in respect of a solicitor’s misconduct. If you wish to claim compensation for the inadequate level of service you have received from your own solicitor you may wish to contact the Legal Ombudsman as follows:
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Ignorance and FEAR, methinks.
Fear of bigger payments?
It’s quite Macchiavellian, to say the least: the veil of secrecy in the family courts and the appearance of lawfulness by solicitors and the judiciary – all to cover up perversions re sex, money or both…
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Excellent. Personally I think Mr Reid and co. are heading for a big problem with this.
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Reid and McAlpine are managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. As it so often does, greed is blinding them to sense.
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Well, I think it is time to carry out some analysis on whether the McAlpine actions are similar to the notorious ‘speculative invoicing’ claims some years ago. I apologise for the long post but hopefully it provides a good summary and basis for further discussion and debate.
So far, I have read no responses on any site refuting the suggestion. Only a few isolated and short responses talking about the ‘rule of law’ and ‘access to justice’ for McAlpine. Well, I have always argued that there is no right to justice if that involves bringing its adminstration into disrepute or trampling over justice to get there. I would argue that the conduct of this litigation runs the grave risk of doing so.
So, the pioneers of ‘speculative invoicing’ did the following and it resulted in the following.
1) They built up a system which identified alleged wrongdoing (i.e file sharing) and took steps via court order requests to identify these ‘offenders’
2) They wrote thousands of letters of claims, demanding sums of money off members of the public. The message was ‘pay up’ or see you in court. There were serious defeciencies in the evidence, the letters of claim and some of the allegations were unproven and wrong. The receivers of these letters had little or no legal knowledge.
3) Hardly any cases reached court because the speculative invoicers did not want any cases tested.
4) Which Magazine made an official complaint to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). The SRA fined and suspended some of the offenders. A senior High Court judge criticised the litigation (see my above posts) and the practice came to an end… until now perhaps.
Now I will list what happened in the conduct of the McAlpine action and identify the similarities in behaviour. In my view there are some important parallels. But perhaps some differences which perhaps could be held in mitigation as well as others which could arguably be worse than the speculative invoicing cases. This all adds up in my book to the conduct of this litigation in its present form being completely inappropriate and fully justifies calls for a judge and SRA to step in and restrain Mr Reid before the adminsitration of justice is brought into disrepute.
1) Mr Reid has complained that his client was defamed on Twitter. There is no doubt that his client has a cause of complaint for what unfolded but it has to be said that the police, media corporations and social media have all had some involvement and responsibility. I am going to leave the arguments aside about whether he was defamed on Twitter or not but we have to accept in a democracy that this has not been proven.
2) Mr Reid then carried out many interviews in the press and radio targeting Twitter users on mass and advising them by media that they will be pursued and it would be cheaper to settle. He also claims to have contacted the police on the basis the tweets might be criminal in nature. Did he contact the police for this reason or was it to add to a general atmosphere of intimidation and to encourage people to come forward and provide their details?.
3) Mr Reid then set up ‘reconcilation forms’ on his website encouraging people to provide them with their details. He talks of nominal damages to a charity and unspecified costs which will be later determined. Once these forms have been completed and sent back Twitter users will be told what they need to pay.
The similarities in circumstances and conduct is that this litigation has been conducted on mass. Apart from the speculative invoicing episode there are few comparisions. In my view this very fact alone puts the onus of responsibility firmly on Mr Reid to ensure he is conducting this litigation fairly and in line with SRA principles and guidelines and Civil Procedure Rules (CPR).
Like the speculative invoicing claims there is a presumption of guilt for the people being pursued. Defamation and wrongdoing has not been proven. This is quite wrong and the system Mr Reid has set up is based on the presumption of guilt and pressurising people to come forward and own up on this basis. Most of the people involved will have no legal knowledge. Furthermore, at my last look on the website there was no advice advising these unrepresented people to seek legal advice.
Mr Reid’s site talks of nominal sums but unspecified costs not yet determined which you will not know about until you have handed your personal details over. Furthermore are there any assurances that the information you provide will be used correctly and for the porpose given?. Is this information protected and secure? One of the concerning things is the fact the specific wrongdoing in each case has not been identified by RMPI or justified as being defamatory or properly quantified in terms of the remedy requested.
I think readers can see the similarities so far and the few differences. The main difference is that this litigation is not being conducted by letter and is so far directed against mainly unknown people. There might have been some mitigation if such a scheme had been set up where damages and costs were determined first before handing over your details. There might have been some mitigation if the aggressive media campaign had not been launched prior to setting up the website. However, as I pointed out above, surely this whole litigation has now to be viewed in the worrying new phase of the action against Mrs Bercow and a claim for 50K. This perhaps is where one major difference between the two situations emerges – and is arguably far worse than the speculative invoicers whose demands for money were at least consistent and less discriminatory (albeit still wrong).
Forget about what you think of SB for a moment but think seriously about the tiny role that her tweet played in all of this. You have the police, the BBC, ITV, previous long running allegations on the internet and thousands of Twitter users involved after the BBC programme. Does her involvement justify a High Court claim for £50,000? Or is Mr Reid acting as judge, jury and executioner? Do the ends (achieving justice) justify the means? Or does the demand when viewed properly and in light of everything I have mentioned, run the risk of bringing the justice system into disrepute and trampling all over it.
I will leave you with some observations made by a judge in an internet libel case which is the most similar you will find to this. It involved multiple defendants and there were parallels in the conduct of the litigation and demanding sums which would never be awarded in court. (i.e overcompensation) The over compensation argument is hugely important and shows why this factor on its own is enough to stop this litigation in its tracks. I would invite Mr Reid to come on to this site and respond to the points I have made. Perhaps we can discuss how he feels his conduct is justified, in terms of following the pre action protocol for defamation (ensuring litigants are on an equal and fair footing), observing SRA rules about treating unrepresented defendants fairly and perhaps most interestingly of all – how he expects to recover £50,000 in damages from Mrs Bercow in view of the observations above and below
This was the first hearing of the case mentioned…….
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/sino_search_1.cgi?sort=rank&query=smith%20and%20v%20and%20advfn&method=boolean&highlight=1&mask_path=/
9• The strategy adopted by Mr Smith , aided by his solicitors, has been to try to pick off the “offenders” one by one by threatening proceedings for libel and by suggesting payments by way of damages and/or costs. Many of the people concerned are, as I understand it, impecunious or of modest means and there is clearly the hope that they will collapse and comply with these demands at an early stage.
10• At the very least it is possible to conclude, even at this stage, that the strategy of “divide and rule” is inappropriate, as I have explained to Mr Smith this morning and as he is already aware. This is especially so in libel proceedings because, if they are appropriate at all, damages can only be assessed in the round (that is in the context of the overall picture). In particular, any distress and hurt feelings suffered by Mr Smith would have to be compensated by reference to the totality of the publications and not on the artificial basis of the sum total of the impact upon his feelings by one individual publication; otherwise there would, as I think he understands, obviously be a significant risk of overcompensation.
The actual judgement:
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2008/1797.html&query=smith+and+v+and+advfn&method=boolean
9. It is obviously a relevant question to ask whether someone who had to pay court fees would have thought it proportionate to any legitimate gain to issue 37 sets of proceedings (with apparently more to come). If there is a genuine desire for vindication over any significant defamatory allegation, it is reasonable to suppose that this objective could generally be achieved by a more targeted strategy. Inevitably, one is left with the impression that Mr Smith and his solicitors are determined, as I described it on 12 May, to pick off the potential defendants one by one and to make it clear to them that it would be cheaper to apologise and pay up at an early stage. It may be, therefore, that his fees exempt status is being used as a tactical weapon. What is more, one of the common complaints from the litigants in person is that this impression is confirmed by the failure to comply with the defamation protocol by spelling out the exact nature of the complaint before issuing proceedings.
46. This is a most unsatisfactory state of affairs. Not only, yet again, did Mr Smith and his legal advisers fail to comply with the defamation protocol, but they failed even to identify what he is alleged to have said – over a year later. It is possible that the solicitors, being engaged on a conditional fee agreement, were trying to keep down costs by not exerting themselves beyond the bare minimum. If so, that is a philosophy which does not serve the interests of justice or of fairness to these multiple defendants.
73.First, there was the potential risk of over-compensation (to which I had referred on 12 May). It was clearly necessary for any award of damages to be made in the context of all the claims (including those settled last year). It would not be right to compensate for either injury to reputation or for hurt feelings as though any individual’s publication(s) had been the sole cause.
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My apologies – I missed out this relevant part of the judgement I referred to above. Interestingly the demands made in this case were also done on the basis that the settlements would go to charity. Some early settlements were made by a few people under pressure, although it was never determined which charity benefited from these settlements. Perhaps the money was used to pursue the other claims which subsequently failed and therefore the ‘charity’ never benefited. I suspect we will never know. Anyway the judge made no distinction – demanding unrecoverable sums is unacceptable in all cases.
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2008/1797.html&query=smith+and+v+and+advfn&method=boolean
23. If litigation is being used to exert pressure on people to pay money (whether for charity or otherwise) or to apologise without any regard to the overall merits, solely with a view to avoiding spending money without hope of recovery, then the court needs to ensure that its processes are not being abused.
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