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.

It is possible that local authorities will see this firm as one they would like to hire. It is important to note however that parents win around 85% of cases they appeal. Most of them without representation. This is because they usual path for basic provision their children are entitled to is via tribunal.

Unless an appeal is made a local authority just will not provide the child's rights.

The reasons are complex. Partly it is due to funding problems which are both a)genuine and b)caused by LA mismanagement/past refusal to invest in SEN in-house provision.

Local authorities are often in a position where they can justify denying a child their legal entitlement on the basis that there aren't enough resources and so sharing out what there is, is 'fair'. If a parent challenges they are seen as greedy and unreasonable. The bigger the challenge, the angrier the LA might get and therefore employ often quite barbaric practises to deter the parent from continuing.

Why this foray is important to parents, is because where they were isolated as lone victims with stories no-one could possibly believe, they now have evidence of the 'tone' with which they can be treated.

TheBouquets it's a pity your experiences of solicitors compels you to tar us all with the same brush. Please be assured that we really aren't all like that!

Why on earth are law firms on Twitter? Twitter is for TOWIE cast members and washed up soap-stars. Isn't it??

The vast majority of law firms are on twitter. Mine is although I personally never tweet or follow any one who does. The Scottish Government has a twitter feed as well. I don't understand why any one would want to follow legal tweets.

An SEN tribunal case wouldn't normally be reported. Appeals to the Upper Tribunal can get reported in the law reports if they raise interesting legal issues, but the children concerned and their parents wouldn't usually be named.

This firm seems to have shot itself in the foot in that respect, in that people have been pointing out online that there are apparently three recent reported Upper Tribunal appeals where they lost heavily.

LassWiTheDelicateAir in my last firm we were expected to tweet regularly. No I don't understand why anyone would follow them either but they did / do. We used them to post 'interesting' legal updates...

I wish there was just accountability ... Here the LA just lies and rejected statements. Even when they breach time scales, lie, cheat and get caught it's just a case of oops sorry! Then when I try again 12 months laster it's the same issues and they don't care! They would take great pleasure in hiring the most corrupt lawyers to do their biddings! When will these people be held accountable for their actions? Until they do there can be no improvements!

User - I'm afraid I don't agree with you at all.

This is not a level playing field here. This firm are instructed by LAs with relatively deep pockets. It really is man(woman/child) v state.

In my firm if/when we have a success we congratulate ourselves and perhaps have a drink together/eat cake. If it's a matter of real importance we might release a press release along the lines of iMatter & Co secure victory in important area relating to blah blah. We would never ever belittle, patronise, sneer at someone. What really boils my piss is that this case clearly involved a family who had been battling for the help they so desperately needed and this arsehole thought it was appropriate to sneer at them and undermine any sense of victory they may have had.

Have just seen this letter of apology on FB feed. I doubt it will calm the furore or stem the likely loss of business. I doubt LAs will rush to this company, the tweets show an appalling lack of judgment. If I were the SRA, I'd be taking a careful look at what was meant by "interesting to see how parents continue to persist with it". It seems to be referring to parents in general, not "the parents" in this case. To me, it sounds as though he thinks they shouldn't bother, which coming from a solicitor who are also officers of the court sounds very wrong indeed. Did anyone else read it this way?

I'm surprised that the letter of apology doesn't pin the inappropriate comments on one individual. It's basically confirming they were sanctioned by the firm!

Our firm is on Twitter - both as a firm and for individual departments. If anyone posted anything like that they'd be sacked and probably publicly reprimanded!

It's up there with the tweet shortly after the Alton towers crash from a PI firm - "Have you been injured in a roller coaster crash? Call XXX".... Totally inappropriate IMO.

So, who posted those tweets?

The style is totally consistent throughout and the same tweeter seems to have referred to owning a firm, to private pools and to have close knowledge of the cases. So if you ask me it's the managing partner and he's trying to distance himself with this "disciplinary action" stuff. Also seems unlikely that any of the staff would access the firm's account on a Saturday night.

MS posting drunk I'm guessing

Everyone who 'knows' him, is pretty certain it is the owner/director who tweeted.

It looks very much like a breach of the SRA Code of Conduct to me

www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/handbook/code/part1/content.page

6: "behave in a way that maintains the trust the public places in you and in the provision of legal services"

Really unprofessional.

I think the letter is very carefully phrased to imply that the tweets were made by some underling but without actually saying so. Someone has sobered up enough to realise that there's no point lying because the SRA would very easily be able to find out who was responsible. So I reckon it definitely was the managing partner.

Their website seems to be unavailable now.

Starlight we have been working hard together on Twitter today

Oh!? So who be you on Twitter then?

I P'med Starlight, I wasn't ignoring her

:-)

I wonder what tomorrow will bring!!

That letter is beyond bollocks

Tomorrow it reaches parliament , thanks to Sharon Hodgson twitter.com/sharonhodgsonmp/status/742107470789775360

Well I've done some digging and it seems to me that this man doesn't stand a chance when he's up against good, solid representation. I spoke to someone this evening who said that he's won every time he's been in the opposing team against him.

Apparently he's disorganised in tribunals and tries to get them adjourned. And it does seem to be specifically ABA that he has a huge bee in his bonnet about.

I wonder what the hell his problem actually is?

Great news about MP attention