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.

Oh, just remembered... on his now deleted tweets from Sunday morning he tweeted several times that he had received threatening "tweets" (note "tweets" and in the plural). On LBC yesterday he said it was a single email.

So what was it? Several tweets? Or an email? This was also at the same time when he was tweeting on Sunday that "appropriate disciplinary action will be taken". He also stated things such as "tweets from the Baker Small account" (ie avoiding naming himself)

If he was threatened, then yes that is totally unacceptable. But given his conduct since this has all blown up, you can't wonder why we find it unbelievable.

Perhaps he should go to the police (or the SRA) now with his email so we can be sure it exists.

I will look for more screenshots, I remember the one about the world of SEN too.
I went through every single tweet when this first was posted on Twitter, there was not one single threatening tweet. He then claimed it was an email threatening his daughter specifically (on LBC). The email didn't mention his daughter as far as I could see.

Certainly he should take this to the police as they can do the tracing procedure.

Oh yes the disciplinary action ones would be good as that's pretty disingenuous

Another one

Saturday 11 June: Someone tweeted "it's not a football match, solicitors should not be advertising their wins on Twitter, these are are people's lives #unprofessional". He responded at 22:38 with "There you go"

Please. Am I missing something? Where is the red mist?

I am not he. I don't use twitter except to tweet on my own feed about legal developments in my field. I have no involvement with special needs. Some (not all) of the comments about this solicitor are unfair and some seem justified. I feel this thread is a bit one sided in places.

As for reporting things to the police I would hardly ever do that. I have had all sorts of things said about me on line and I have never once as far as I can remember reported that to the site and would never involve the police either as all that tends to back fire. Same with clients who are libelled - usually it causes more trouble than it's worth to sue and you just draw more attention to the problem. I did feel some of the posts (not most of them) above were libellous but I cannot be bothered to read through them all again and check. I never said saying his penis was small was a libel,. I said it was nasty and a pity the thread had to descend to that level.

His tweets are not too bad in my view but I am sure it will all calm down soon. I don't think it was wise of him to tweet about the win other than in the usual dull lawyer terms such as we won in court today and proved a novel point XYZ (and then of course only disclose what by law you are allowed to disclose) and he seems to have brought this on h imself but reading this thread and the reaction I count my lucky stars I don't practise in the special needs field. Same with divorce law.

I have huge sympathy by the way for parents with children with special needs. I have no direct experience except a child with mild dyslexia or whatever they call it these days.

Whether he has infringed a professional rule by "crowing in victory" which is presumably the gist of people's complaint. If he has disclosed confidential information which he should not have done then that might be a second issue to examine.

Found them

I have complained to the SRA not because of his "crowing" but specifically against these principles of the SRA Code of Conduct

• Principle 2: You must act with integrity.
• Principle 6: You must behave in a way that maintains the trust the public places in you and in the provision of legal services.

("Public places" in this instance being Twitter.)

His original tweets, followed by his original attempts of covering it up by lying (ie "appropriate disciplinary action will be taken", distancing himself from being the actual person tweeting, originally tweeting he was receiving threatening tweets). But now changing this to a "red mist" when he received the email, and, because he had Twitter open at the same time started to tweet (this was said by him on LBC). And his timeline of events now being somewhat "creative"

All of the above shows that he has not acted with integrity (Principle 2) and he has not "behave[d] in a way that maintains the trust" (Principle 6)

I suspect the SRA will just give him a rap on the knuckles (just like the LGO rapped my LA on the knuckles because of the illegal practices they had adopted because of some of his advice). The real damage to him is his reputation and loosing at least £1m pa of lucrative contracts.

Yes, Mark Small tweeted that 'the appropriate disciplinary action would be taken against the person responsible and that they will be spoken to'. Also that Baker Small did not condone the tweets.
Except that it was Mark Small doing the tweeting.

Clearly trying to blame it on a junior member of staff. As far as I am aware, he is the only qualified solicitor in Baker Small. I wonder where the 'Baker' comes from?

According to the SRA there are 3 very junior solicitors working for him. I'm not sure that matches what I saw on his website but it's been taken down now anyway.

Would be pretty unimpressed if I was one of them and it was implied that I might be behind the tweets.

Apologies for that, yes I would be pretty upset that he had tried to pin it on me. I think that's why he took the page down when people started questioning that it was a junior.

I would also question him his professional integrity (and judgement) on personally phoning into LBC and lying

Surely merely phoning a talk programme also shows lack of integrity? One thing for a lawyer to go onto eg the news to discuss an important legal case. Quite another for a lawyer to go on to defend his own professional (mis)conduct.

In case anybody is wondering, no this is not a witchhunt nor a mob lynching. On this thread (and twitter) are people's whose lives and families have nearly been destroyed because of this man.

We theoretically the right thing to do then but much better just not to try to shift the blame in the first place!

I think he might be the only one to do the LA tribunals, that's what has been said in the media.
The others appear to do different specialities, he has completely portrayed himself as riddled with dishonesty unfortunately.

I am sad to see it described by some as just a mistake or a silly tweet that has been turned in to a witching. This has exposed what families have been put through for years and no one believed them.

Jeremy This is why I'm not going against those that say it's a silly mistake. It is totally unbelievable. I didn't believe it until I entered "the system" 4 years ago. From the outside, it could seem all made up and that we're just being oversensitive to his tweets.

Go after those that can make a difference - ie go for all the LA who contract this work out to BS, then go after central government. I saw one tweet (I'm loosing track from whom) which said that the DofEd had given Gloucestershire LA over £300k specifically to help implement the new EHCP. Gloucestershire LA have a £300k pa contract with Baker Small.

For this sort of sum of money, they could bring it all in-house. This £300k was specifically intended for vulnerable children. Not to line lawyers' pockets. That's my next line of attack.

ANewDay I think you're missing this one

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jun/14/councils-cancel-contracts-with-law-firm-tweets?CMP=fb_gu

You are right anewday, I am probably getting too caught up in that. It's just another sign of how some people regard the parents of SEN children as whingers or grabby or attention seekers.

Some good will come out of this in the end, it will be a positive thing.

At least eight local authorities cancelled or promised to review contracts with a law firm that specialises in fighting support claims for children with special educational needs (SEN), after its managing director published a series of tweets apparently gloating at parents.

Westminster, Cambridgeshire, Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, Buckinghamshire, Norfolk and Hertfordshire suspended their contracts with the firm or said relations would be ended within months. A number of other councils that use Baker Small said they hoped to bring SEN legal work in-house as a result of the firm’s ill-judged comments.

I posted that rural a bit further down with the other ones. It's shocking isn't it?

It's sad as he used to be such a happy little chap

His tweets may not be 'too bad' in your view User, but they're bad enough for quite a few LAs to be seeking to distance themselves from BS.

I wonder if he made the Baker bit up. Or possibly his wife's maiden name?

Sorry Jeremy my phone hadn't updated the thread so I didn't see anything after ANewDay's request!

It's clearer than my screenshot rural, just shows his contempt.

New timeline of tweets

1. Friday 10 June - 21:37: Great ABA Trib win this week...interesting to see how parents continue to persist with it. Funny thing is parents think they won ;)

2. Then when someone rebuked him for the ABA tweet, his response was “Whenever someone thinks they have won and they have conceded 90% of their case, it does make me smile.” (I can't see the date stamp on this one but presume it's Friday evening)

3. Saturday 11 June: In response to the tweet "In passing, I note that @bakersmall are having a bad night on Twitter. I hope the LAs that commision them will think twice". He responded at 3:51pm with "what from the mob LOL! Please sticks and stones and all that LOL!

4. Saturday 11 June 17:56. In response to a tweet from someone who said they were going to report him to the SRA "dear oh dear complaints policy is on our website. Can dish it out but not take a different opinion."

5. Saturday 11 June - 19:14: "Crickey had a great "win" last week which sent some parents into a storm! It is always a great win when the other side thinks they've win!"

6. Saturday 11 June - 22:03: - "Some great tweets received today from people who just see a one sided argument...just shared them with my cat [picture of a laughing cat]"

7. Saturday 11 June - 22:36: "When parental solicitors champion their "win" they are lauded on twitter. Double standards I'm afraid"

8. Saturday 11 June: Someone else tweeted "it's not a football match, solicitors should not be advertising their wins on Twitter, these are are people's lives #unprofessional. He responded at 22:38 with "There you go"

9. Saturday 11 June - 22:52: - "Shame about the football but nice to be relaxing on twitter at the end of a busy week [picture of a luxury villa with a swimming pool]"

10. Saturday 11 June -23:48 "SRA referals and anti-Baker Small posts, the emotive world of SEN (one sided) that is."

After which time several people asked him to stop and he blocked them.

The last one appears to be the final inappropriate one from Saturday before the apologies started. Anyone got anything else?

Does anyone still believe that this was knee-jerk response to a threatening email?

user from a fellow lawyer, please tell me again that these aren't too bad? We are not taking about the "gloating" tweets, we are talking about his entire conduct which started Friday night and continued on into late Saturday night. I haven't even got to his conduct on Sunday (blaming "someone else" and then Monday''s insincere apologies) before the story "broke". Please tell me that you believe he is upholding the SRA Code of Conduct?

I repeat again this man nearly destroyed my family. His actions caused my DC to be out of school for a year. His advice to my LA almost irretrievably broke-down my on-going relationship with LA - which will continue until my child is 25. Only after their apology personally given to me and my husband after the LGO upheld my complaint (which was not specifically against BS) have we been able to rebuild our relationship.

And of course, at the centre of this onslaught was my child, who is now thriving in his school.

Why is no-one asking Warwickshire (who have JUST taken out a contract with BakerSmall) what their plans are now?

They are being extremely quiet.