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.

AugustaFinkNottle I am certain that it was him.

It is an interesting point. Divorce lawyers who manage to enforce a prenuptial agree or win the biggest damages ever or whatever will publicise the win (some not all of them) anf that is lawful where the judgement is published on line. That is about an individual family.
If it is about a settlement of a case then usually those contain secrecy clauses so presumably neither side is allowed to say anything about it at all in public. I don't nkow if this case is a settlement as the Facebook post wonders or a court or tribunal judgment.

(In the old days all advertising by lawyers, advertising of just about all kinds was against the rules by the way many decades ago)

If it were employment law and you get employees making up allegations (yes is happens) I don't think it's wrong for the employer or their lawyer to put out a press release syaing they fought off the action of XYZ employee when it's in the public domain already.

It certainly raises interesting issues but they've taken it down right away here so I doubt even if breaks the rules in some way too much harm has been done.

They don't seem to have taken it down "right away" as it was up for some hours whilst they merrily argued with people criticising them and posted LOLs and pictures of cats.

'Now referring to internal disciplinary action being taken.'

The tweets are from the Director/owner. Other tweets indicate this as he refers to himself as owner/director in them.

This is worth a read:

www.stephstwogirls.co.uk/2016/06/why-baker-small-bs-should-be-out-of.html

I only hope this leads to more action regarding LA practice. It is LAs that create the market for such behaviours. If BS were to go under, the people within it will pop up again elsewhere and/or others will fill their space. Unless you want to play (to quote a friend) 'hit the mole' we need to deal with the systemic issue and not the effects.

I do agree. The current system where LAs are severely underfunded and therefore some are regularly lying to parents and obstructing them in getting the support their children need is simply not acceptable. It's ridiculous that, when the government had the chance to do something about it when they reformed the system they did nothing whatsoever to address this.

Have they responded any further? I am confused as to why they have issued an apology to all the people that they have blocked. Those that can't see the apology

I have no involvement with special needs at all but I am interested in what advertising lawyers should be allowed when they win cases. What do people think?

Eg could they tweet or issue a press release saying they won a case? Presumably no one is against that?

So this bit okay?
"Great ABA Trib win this week "

Just as if I won a commercial or business case I could tweet - "Great CJEU win this week"

So therefore people are objecting to the second part?

"interesting to see how parents continue to persist with it. Funny thing is parents think they won ;)" "

I don't think I would comment on the lsoers if I were to produce such a press announcement or tweet.

Here is a typical lawyer press release when they win something:
"International law firm XYZ achieved a significant victory on 17 May, in securing an order to use predictive coding as part of a substantial document review exercise in an ongoing unfair prejudice petition, which XYZ believes is the first such order in a contested application."

I think lawyers would not normally comment on the defendants although whether there is a professional rule to that effect is not so clear. Let me see if I can find any that do.

Alan Sugar fought off an employment claim. The press says

"Following the unanimous ruling in his favour, he tweeted: "A victory for the law against the claim culture."

In a written judgment, Judge John Warren said: "This was a claim which should never have been brought. ""

So by analogy do people think the winners here were 1. wrong to tweet that they won and/or 2. to refer to the "claim culture"?

I thought Sugar's tweet wasn't dignified, but then again he was the defendant not the lawyer, so it's more excusable.

I think generally the important thing for lawyers is not to personalise things, especially if they're acting against vulnerable individuals. We wouldn't be impressed if someone tweeted "Great victory against brain damaged victim today, saved my clients £1m". But the sort of wording user refers to above re XYZ is OK. In SEN tribunal cases, I suspect the most you'll see from claimant lawyers is something like "Delighted to secure specialist school placement for severely autistic child" - and I think that's acceptable because it doesn't personalise it and it's not gloating over someone vulnerable.

In this case, it still leaves a bit of a nasty taste in the mouth that they talk about a "great ABA win" simply because they have as part of their practice focussed quite heavily on the claim that they can help LAs defeat appeals for ABA - and there's a distinct implication that ABA is some faddy thing only ever claimed by greedy, grabby parents. Given that, for some children, ABA has been proved to be very helpful, the fact that they boast about preventing it regardless of whether the child actually needed it is pretty unpleasant.

There's a massive difference between being the client like Sugar was and the legal representative like the firm in this case.

As the legal rep you keep your mouth shut and your fingers off the keyboard. It's unprofessional and as a lawyer there are professional standards and expectations that go far and beyond the usual obligations of the general public and individuals.

When cases are reported by firms they are done so dispassionately and without emotion. They are also usually anonymous and reported in the third person.

I don't think those type of claims can be compared. There is a vulnerable child at the heart of this, extra care needs to be taken.

Similarly if a lawyer managed to fight off a clinical negligence claim where someone died, I would expect a different type of reporting. No gloating, no smart arse comments, no cat pictures

Has anyone who knows the case sent links to councillors from the council who were using him in this case?

I'm fairly certain the council will know about this by tomorrow. But whether they care is another thing.

Some LAs commission exactly this kind of prevailing attitude from their agencies.

I think it's going viral.

Bake small website is down.

The whole "can we comment on winning" thing depends on how it's done, what is said about the other side and what sort of case it is.

I haven't seen anyone commenting other than where a case is interesting enough to be in the media, in which case they link to an article and make a brief comment. I know that the reason why the article exists is most likely to be because a press release was sent in, but that's not the same as rambling away on Twitter.

As both a solicitor and parent with a disabled child I think it is highly unprofessional, and do think that the tribunal may be interested, a former colleague had to go before a court when he tweeted about needing a drink after a tough day in court when the other side could identify the case( just from the date and the solicitor) which was extreme, and in my view wrong, but the tweet much milder than this. I am therefore intrigued as to how he thought he could get away with it. Also if I were the parents or a right thinking LEA I think I would consider a report to the information commissioner if the tweet in fact does identify the child, if only to those who know the case, as I doubt he had the child's consent to process this data on Twitter, and he may therefore have other problems.

Personally speaking, as a parent who has endured three SEND tribunals in the space of three years and literally scrapped with my LA for every penny, I find it unprofessional and insulting to the parents but most of all, totally lacking any acknowledgement that there is a child at the heart of this process. Parents want to work in collaboration with their LA and staff but more often than not, parents are ridden roughshod over regardless of the needs of their child. So, if parent says their child requires X support and professional reports on both sides back up the claim, it's very common for the LA to still take it to tribunal in a bid to save money. The parent is then forced into a very emotionally stressful process which lasts months whilst at the same time, questing WHY it has to go to tribunal at all. It ruins people's mental health, some have to sell their homes to finance the professional fees (because parents are then forced to retain professional Educational Psychologists, Speech & Language therapists, Occupational therapists and any other required professional to provide their evidence which costs thousands) and even marriages break down because of the stress of it all. Parents do not enter this thinking they are going to get all singing, all dancing type of support for their child better than a child in mainstream school. More often than not a child is in crisis state when parents are at tribunal stage which adds to the immorality of this firm's behaviour really.

So when you see extremely distasteful, unprofessional tweets from the other side's legal representatives, mocking the parents, it makes people very upset, angry and only re-emphasises the belief that it's all about the money. The government spin of Every Child Matters and child-centered discussions and processes are just that - spin. Meanwhile child X will not receive the support the parent claims they need. Any support won is rarely exceptional, it's generally just to keep the child engaged in learning.

I've watched a tribunal judge strongly reprimand an LA rep for trying to refuse support using 'public expenditure' as justification when the support requested was clearly required in the first place.

Firms like BS help LA's do this every week. We are not talking about criminal or divorce proceedings, we are talking about specialist support required to engage disabled children in learning - a right of every child in the country. A right which LAs have a legal duty to uphold.

Does anyone else think it's appropriate that their website currently reads "fatal error"?

I think it's one thing when it's, say Coca Cola v Pepsi, quite another to send a gloaty tweet about a case relating to a vulnerable child and which makes a disparaging comment about their parents

I too expect the tribunal that heard the case should be notified

I don't think a tweet saying you won a case when we have open and public justice in the UK is wrong. The possible wrong is in referring to the other side who lost. If it were worded more as babyb says it would be better. you could say "as interesting points arose and although the defendants have alleged they won, they only won on 10% of their claims". Are these types of cases like confidential child contact cases where there are reporting restrictions or are they public like most UK cases, employment tribunals and the like where it is perfectly okay to talk about information in the public domain.

it is possible the publicity the complaint has caused will cause more local authorities to rush to this firm if they are so good in fighting off these cases by the way. So don't assume this publicity is going to be bad for the firm concerned.

I don't know if it's wrong but it's not classy. Much better to link to something in the Times or whatever.

What was wrong here was the tone and the fact that a disabled child is at the centre of it. Oh and the LOLs and kitten. But those maybe fall under the heading of "tone".

it is possible the publicity the complaint has caused will cause more local authorities to rush to this firm if they are so good in fighting off these cases by the way. So don't assume this publicity is going to be bad for the firm concerned

Well we can wait and see but I can't imagine it, particularly not if the SRA get involved. We don't actually know from all his LOLs that he has a high success rate.