Is this appropriate conduct for solicitors?

[AugustaFinkNottle]

A solicitors' firm which acts for councils in special educational needs tribunals has tweeted the following:

"Great ABA Trib win this week ... interesting to see how parents continue to persist with it. Funny thing is parents think they won ;)"

I can't link to it due to having been blocked but it's been retweeted, e.g here.

The original tweet resulted in numerous complaints and a quick change to the tweet.

The case they're triumphalising about will have involved a disabled child. Lovely.

My fear is that the council's will pay lip service and hope that it all calms down. He will still be employed.
I didn't realise that he was getting contracts without proper procurement process.

Yes. He can go in under the levels I think, to start with, and then 'on the books'.

He followed us from one LA to another. They took him on straight away. And then sacked him shortly after as I don't think they wanted to do things his way.

We own a business that works entirely on public sector contracts and can't do any work without full procurement process.

So that's even more reason for him to be put under scrutiny.

Nothing surprises me anymore tbh

The Guardian are now getting involved. A journalist wants to be put in contact with the family involved. If you know who this family is, the journalist is [email protected]

Regardless of any "meeting" that woman has, she cannot smooth things over IMO, as she cannot speak for any of us.

Any responses from HCC will be lip service cover ups. They enjoy the same devious workings as the firm they employ to serve them.

Devil's advocate if you like but the payers of UBR and council tax might judge a firm on its success rate.

What could be interesting is finding out more from the LAs that used him for a time and stopped. I think Richmond only used him for one case so obviously they weren't happy with him.

Essex definitely used them - its on their website - around the time of my first tribunal in 2012. At the time, my own SEN solicitors told me that they strongly suspected that BS were behind a particularly nasty and aggressive personal attack on me which was bizarrely lodged with the tribunal after the LA had conceded. The judge threw it out and told the LA off. So in my case, BS were particularly unsuccessful. I'm ploughing through all Essex's spreadsheets and have spotted payments to Baker Small paid in 2014. Not sure if any are more recent.

Those contract payments are considerable when compared against the cost of employing an in-house lawyer, especially if the statistic is true that 85% of parents win these cases. I hope the LA's involved will be carrying out a thorough cost/benefit review. I'd be interested to know who much the SEN services they are spending money fighting against actually cost.

how much, not who much!

They're not hire to win cases but to destroy families so that others don't dare challenge provision.

ROF is on it now

www.rollonfriday.com/Blogs/ReadBlog/tabid/144/id/36783/Default.aspx

They're not hire to win cases but to destroy families so that others don't dare challenge provision.

This This ^This

And so that the families they try to destroy don't carry on to the next stage. BS personal attack on me was to stop me going to the next stage of the "process" - ie getting support. The first stage (which the LA conceded) was merely agreeing my DC needed support.

Strangely, BS bizarre personal attack on me at the end of the first stage, steeled me to fight on to the bitter end regardless.

Loving some of the sarky bits of the ROF article:

"In a subsequent tweet, Small expressed bitterness that parents' lawyers are applauded when they boast about winning against local authorities, whereas he is not, indicating that he is somehow unaware that 'parents fighting for their disabled children' comprise a significantly more sympathetic demographic than 'lawyers boasting that they have beaten parents fighting for their disabled children'."

"Just before midnight, as the onslaught persisted, Small took the last refuge of the twitter-shamed and claimed victimhood"

"Small told RollOnFriday, "Inappropriate tweets were sent from the Baker Small twitter account, which in the context of the work we undertake both for public bodies and parents, were unacceptable and showed a lack of sincerity to Parents". He added that, "We recognise that offence was caused", which is reassuring, because only a dead person wouldn't have"

Have to love ROF!

Excellent response/press release from SOS!SEN, a charity whose aim is to help parents of children with Special Educational Needs navigate employment law. If you click the link, it's a pdf so will download.

SOS!SEN’s response to BS tweets

This is a snippet from their press release – and succinctly sums up why those tweets were so inappropriate

One of those authorities presumably instructed BS in the case featuring in the infamous tweets and, we suspect, are now dealing with a very angry family who will have been able to identify the case with the greatest of ease. The LA has to maintain a relationship with that family as they will continue to be responsible for the education of the child in question and, probably for their social care. The parents could certainly be forgiven for finding it impossible to trust an LA whose representatives have been poking fun at them so publicly and gloating at their perceived “victory” in the appeal. Word is liable to get round amongst other families within that LA’s area, so the SEN Department’s job has just been rendered considerably more difficult. We would hope that that LA is now looking very closely at its agreement with BS

And that should extend to other authorities. If they can breach one LA’s confidentiality, is any LA safe? How many parents are happy about paying council tax to an LA which is spending large amounts of money (generally in the hundreds of thousands according to online sources) on a firm which, in essence, is making it clear that it regards its responsibilities as a game to be played and won against “emotive” parents and their children

Useful advice for parents at the end of that, too.

Those tweets make me want to cry

Appalling.

I think this is a clear case of a person having enough rope to hang themselves.

Fact certainly is stranger than fiction!

I think this quote certainly sums up my own feelings towards BS

"Remember. What you do now will come back to you in the future. Life has a funny way of making you deal with what you make others go through"

As a parent of a SEN child, who has fought a tribunal and nearly bankupted myself doing so, it was certainly no joke, (and also work in the legal world) I was so shocked by this I thought it might be a hoax/joke at first. When I realised it was not I immediately made a formal complaint to the SRA.

I have also complained to the SRA. I may have had to go up against this firm (still could in theory) because my LA apparently uses them. I wouldn't be scared of them or their bullying though.

There have always been staff at LAs who try to put parents off via intimidation. I've heard of LA reps phoning parents and saying that they've beaten all ABA cases and they may as well give up as this won't be any different.