This morning I wrote to the Solicitors’ Regulatory Authority, asking them to end the practice of solicitors sending libel letters demanding that allegations of wrongdoing are retracted, but insisting that the letters are confidential and cannot be published, or even mentioned.
This follows the letters I received from Osborne Clarke, acting for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. More context here, and legal background to the bogus “confidentiality” claims here.
My letter is below – if you click on the thumbnails they should expand. Alternatively, there’s a PDF here1 Embarrassing “without privilege” typo corrected, courtesy of Heather Self.
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1Embarrassing “without privilege” typo corrected, courtesy of Heather Self
4 responses to “Ending secret libel letters”
Could anybody give some indication as to whether this sort of unreasonable behaviour is practised by all (or most) top legal firms, or only a subset which specialise in aggressive accusations of defamation?
e.g. Would DLA Piper or Clifford Chance issue a similar sort of letter?
If it’s more or less universal in firms that advise in the area, are there any particular firms which have decided not to use such tactics?
That’s an excellent question, and I don’t know the answer. There are certainly a few firms that are well known for sending out aggressive libel letters (Schillings are particularly notorious). I’d like to say others don’t do this, but I don’t know for sure (and I’ve no knowledge of Clifford Chance’s work in this area, or even if it has any… I rather suspect it doesn’t).
You are quite right to obscure the telephone number of the partner at OC who contacted you.
But I do not see why in fairness the name should be obscured – and the formal letter is signed in only the firm’s name.
To stop SLAPPs it would help to remove the anonymity of the perpetrators.
There is a reason that the audit regulators changed the rules a few years ago to require the specific partner’s name to appear on audit reports – it makes people think more carefully about their actions.
I think the only way you will get future behaviour altered is if you *do* complain about OC or similar cases and thereby force the SRA to either reprimand the firm or confess to being spineless which would (eventually) lead to an overhaul of regulation.