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.

He doesn't have a problem. LAs don't employ him to win ime, but to 'give the parents a rough ride'.

As for the letter - what a load of waffley crap!

Why would a LA waste tax payer's money on such a person? Quite unbelievable.

But surely he must have some sort of vendetta otherwise why the obsession with ABA?

And apparently he calls himself 'the ABA terminator'

They spend money on him because he brings chaos and misery to a family who is likely to win, in the hopes that they either give up, or lose due to a tribunal judge and panel not being able to see through the confusion and not wanting to risk an Upper Tier appeal on their decision.

He doesn't give a shit about ABA, but LAs do, and he encourages them through his training to see it and parents who seek it as an unnecessary and un-justifiable drain on resources.

Wow - he's so scared that he's taken his photo off all social media.

What a creep

His twitter account is back up!

His private Twitter account?

If you know your going up against a aggressive person who is going to belittle you at tribunal, who doesn't play by the rules, you might want to give up to save your mental health. Adjourning on the day, when you've paid your witnesses, someone who submits evidence past deadline, on the day, wastes over a hour giving out your child's entire educational records. Being made to feel like a criminal. A sub standard parent and human being.

You want to give in. It works.

I feel sick reading the tweets. Took me right back to dealing with one of his minions. If that bloke could have provided a personal file on me he would have. They would done anything to win.

But the fact is they don't often win. Parents do

Quick Googling shows charges to LAs fees of £7000 to fight SEN families. .
Then their families business SeN4u charge £3500.
Is this the going rate? Surely more cost effective to spend this money supporting the childrens needs?

Yep! The one time we want the DM to read!

Christ. Has the apocalypse come already? Shit. i don't have anywhere near enough canned beans!

In all seriousness though, this firm is a fucking disgrace in the way they handle social media and PR. Our firm doesn't have twitter, or FB and our website is basically a placeholder with contact details. A solicitor has no business discussing cases.

I think it's absolutely despicable of LAs to employ this firm when the parents themselves are not represented. So it boils down to bullying.

Personally, I certainly would not give up in the face of such a thing. The problem with aggressive solicitors is that they are often not as efficient as they could be because at the end of the day the only thing that matters is the legal case and the evidence. I do see how this might upset people though. If you are up against a team who decide to play dirty tricks and you are not represented then you don't have the experience to know how to handle it on the day. I know of a family whose LA told outright lies on the day of the tribunal and produced faked IEP documentation which they said the parent had signed (she hadn't!)

I've just discovered that my LA uses this firm. How bloody unsurprising(!)

Utter train wreck but I am so glad this has come to light.

www.specialneedsjungle.com/why-unfortunate-series-tweets-must-be-send-gamechanger/

Wow Starlight. That's a staggering amount of money.

Norfolk: Live (probably rolling) contract for specialist legal advice on SENDIST appeals. Live since 2012, due for expiry / renewal August 2017. Contract value: £600,000 –

Gloucestershire: Live contract for SENDIST support & staff training, runs 2015-18 with option to extend for 2 further years. Contract value: £300,000 –

Buckinghamshire: Contract (probably rolling) for SENDIST support & staff training, listed on Bucks contract register. Contract value: £120,000

Hertfordshire: Live contract for SENDIST FTT support – 12 months (most likely rolling), October 2015-Sept 2016. Contract value: £80,000 –

A fair amount of BS business seems to come on a case-by-case basis. I’ve dug through various council’s transparency data returns for expenditure over £500 in the last financial year. This is retrospective data – I can’t tell from it whether these local authorities still use BS or not. But it’s recent. Again, nowhere near comprehensive, but I found the following:

Kensington & Chelsea: ~£50,000 in remittances to BS, for unspecified SEN services -

Hammersmith & Fulham: £72,500 in SEND-specific remittances to BS, including one item for £22,750 bizarrely labelled as “SEND Therapy” -

Hillingdon: ~£60,000 in remittances to BS, of which ~£24,000 are clearly SEND service-related

That’s £1.25 million in live SEN contracting action for Baker Small over the last year. And that’s without going north of The Wash - this was data found in just a couple of hours."

WTF can that money be spent for children instead??

*Most larger law firms will employ PR firms and if they win a case they will issue a press release about it. That is not illegal. Indeed it is a fundamental principle of British justice that most cases are in the public domain and anyone can turn up and sit in court or report on them.

Secondly however sometimes a client does not want publicity so in most of my work (commercial clients wanting everything fairly secret) I would not mention a public court victory even then. I do tweet but just about new cases and new laws which are not mine.

We do need to be careful on this thread - presumably no one is saying a law firm cannot issue the standard press releasde or tweet saying we won XYZ case (as all cases are in the public domain in most areas of law)? Views on that point from everyone?*

Our firm don't tweent, FB, insta or anything else about work related issues and all of our staff have it in their contracts that they will no do so about work.It's not that we are secretive, we just respect our clients.

I read that these Tribunals are supposed to be inquisitorial and collaborative, is that true? If so the amount of money being spent by LAs and BS's tweets and attitude described above (if accurate) are all the more surprising.

clarrp, I know and I don't discuss live cases ever. However I just felt no one was putting any points in the other direction so it was all getting a bit one sided.

We all know that solicitors are allowed to tweet and issue press releases about cases they win (or lose) in court so the issue is whether it was a confidential hearing and secondly if the nature of the words used breached a professional rule.

On this point someone else mentioned "An SEN tribunal case wouldn't normally be reported. " That is not the question I was asking. It is not whether people usually report it. most people do not report most county court commercial cases BUT they are public, anyone can attend and any journalist can report the details. I was trying to find out if a SEN tribunal hearing is like an employment case where anyone can come along and write about it or whether it was a confidential closed hearing with no one allowed in or to report. I think the former not the latter.

So the only issue in relation to this man's one sentence is not that he tweeted that the firm won (which is fine to tweet and firms do it all the time) but that he used in one sentence only that ". interesting to see how parents continue to persist with it. Funny thing is parents think they won ;)" That was misguided in my view. I doubt though it ought to be sufficient to result in SRA censure.

If the trouble causes MPs to try to improve the way the system works then that will be a good thing so perhaps parents may even be patting this chap on the back for helping getting the law changed (if change results).

Plenty of lawyers call themselves the rottweiler of XYZ area of law or Mr Loophole or whatever. I am not a great fan of over egging the pudding with advertising but advertising for solicitors in the UK was permitted from about 40 years ago and we have to live with some of it these days. It was 1986 after I qualified that we were first allowed to advertise. Before that we could do things like give talks and write books but not put out advertising. Perhaps before 86 we could have a firm';s printed brochure. I am sure we coudl because I was sent them when applying to firms before that.

The ban on advertising went in 86. Perhaps we should not have changed it at all.

Lottielou7 Are you suggesting that an LA should not be allowed to instruct solicitors in this or any other sort of litigation?

It wasn't one sentence user it went on and featured LOLS various disparaging remarks and a picture of a (cute to be fair) cat laughing.

Ah, I hadn;t seen that. That's why we need to restrict entry to the legal profession more, rather than opening it up. There are too many solicitors as it is and yet they seem to let every Tom, Dick and Harry in these days who don't have it drummed into them that they are a solicitor of the senior courts, that they have duties to the court and the profession and they need to be sensible and serious.

Haa, haa we won is not good, whereas we won this litigation and giving the details in unemotive fashion if it's a public hearing is fine.

fastdaytears I have said that time and time again, unfortunately this seems to have been missed .

Are people still blocked by them on Twitter? I am, it sort of negates any 'apology' if you can't see it.

Nice photo of his swimming pool too.

The public cannot attend a SENDIST tribunal hearing. Confidential information about the child and family is shared.