Man to pay £25,000 damages over negative TrustPilot review
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
> A total waste of money another scam solicitor
> Avoid this solicitor - Summerfield Browne use their own clients confidential information to sue them if they give a bad review. That's why you will not see a bad review of this solicitor, they are now trying to sue me for defamation for the following honest review, rather than refund my money: A total waste of money, another scam solicitor. Stacey mills left the company half way through my assessment and the replacement was useless. I paid upfront for a legal assessment of my case, but what I got was just the information I sent them, reworded and sent back to me. No new information or how to proceed or what the law says or indeed the implications of what was done. I Just got their false assumptions, full of errors showing a lack of understanding for the situation and the law. Once they have your money they are totally apathetic towards you. You will learn more from forums, youtube and the Citizens advice website about your case, for free.
You can judge for yourself if this is defamation and untrue. "Scam solicitor" is the term that probably pushes this over the edge.
> I didn't lie in my review of Sommerfield Browne and them suing their own client for gain shows everyone what they are.
> Their friends and family will back them up, as will the other lawyers.
> I submitted my case based on written law and the judge said it did not apply to me and ordered me to omit the law from my submission, before the trial hearing.
> The fact is the judge put £6,000 costs on me before the case was even heard - I was literally priced out of justice. I could not attend or I would be accepting these costs. I cannot fight a rich solicitor in front of a biased judge. Seeing there was no justice here I decided not to give the court legitimacy by attending.
I wonder what this means? I don't fully trust that guy to accurately summarize issues of law.
- the guy has been led astray by internet law and is some kind of "sovereign citizen" or similar lunatic, in which case nothing he says should be taken at face value
- he genuinely has been mistreated, and is now incredibly paranoid of lawyers and unwilling to seek representation
- he got a quote for representation and an estimate of the possible losses, probably in the six figure range, and decided to cut his losses as quickly as possible
(also, the use of UK libel law to bully people into silence over basically correct points has been a serious problem)
Isn't that the whole point of a site like TrustPilot and of reviews in general?
Does this mean everyone who has ever received a negative review now has grounds to sue for defamation?
A defence against defamation is evidence that the accusations are true. Did the judge even check?
A defence against libel is that the accusations are true, but if you don't submit any evidence to support that, the judge's job isn't to try to prove that you were telling the truth for you.
Maybe, but unless they have a spare six-figure sum lying around they don't have the material capability to sue for libel. It's incredibly expensive. The sheer cost of the law makes it ineffective .. except when protecting the privileged. Or, in this case, since it's a firm of solicitors, they can represent themselves effectively.
His understanding of the costs is wrong anyway.
Which is yet another point against the justice system. If a regular person being accused cannot understand things nor can they afford someone who does... hiw can they defend themselves?
They mostly can't in the US - our justice system relies heavily on coercive plea bargaining. People like Shanta Sweatt[0] plead guilty because the alternative is to face a much longer potential sentence at trial.
90+%[0][1] (94% of convictions at the state level, 97% at the federal level) of cases go through plea bargaining and never reach a courtroom.
I've also heard from a judge that people who represent themselves are often mentally ill.
[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocen...
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/prisons-are-packed-bec...
Support the First Amendment and support anti-SLAPP statues: https://www.popehat.com/2012/06/07/why-yes-i-am-into-slappin...
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the legal firm is forced to rename/rebrand in a few months because its reputation is trashed.
You can win the battle, but lose the war...
You will (hopefully) find that most people have a positive experience. If you don’t find that, perhaps a negative review is the least of your worries.
Once you have a stream of new positive reviews you can generally let negative ones slide much easier. People are acutely aware that not EVERYONE has a positive experience, they just want to see that the negative reviews are people being irrational or for something that won’t apply to them.
They could have just exploited Trustpilot to get the review suppressed.
This video can be annoying and has some strong language, but contains some good points about Trustpilot.
https://www.tradingschools.org/reviews/trust-pilot-the-mecca...
It was foolish of the defendant to not attend the hearing. I can't understand why he didn't.
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.summerfieldbrowne.com
Guess the damage done by trying to ruin a customer's life more than offsets what they won in court.
>... did not attend the online hearing or send a legal representative.
when that happens, the judgement is a default to the plantiff. so its his own fault, and the headline is fairly inaccurate. to be more accurate, would be
"Man doesn't show up to court, defaults judgement of 25k pounds over negative review"
Apparently he felt he was being forced to pay 6k just to even defend himself.
It's still kind of interesting that they even sued him, I suppose. And by looking at their Trustpilot page now, it doesn't seem to be working out well for them.
Justice and The System only work fairly in so much as we make them work fairly. People have fought revolutions over this stuff.
As for being paid well, lawyers may be considered primordial devops, dealing with the source code of society. It would make sense for there to be 10x law engineers.
TL,DR - it's a market economy and legal fees vary due to supply and demand.
Here are some of the factors that legal fees are based on, many of these are true for any professional services firm.
Practice Area - Some types of expertise are rarer. Few lawyers, for example, specialize in smart contracts.
Market Rates - Rates, like the cost of living, are higher in some regions.
Market Position - How is the firm positioning itself? Are they trying for bottom of the market (Walmart), middle of the market (Trader Joe's), or top of the market (a boutique)?
Peer Rates - What are other firms with the same market position charging for this practice area in this region? You don't want to leave money on the table or price yourself out of the market.
Experience - Lawyers with more experience can charge more; there's only one David Boies[0].
Volume of Work - Customers who regularly use legal services can often negotiate a discount.
and so does quality. That's the problem.
Take MegaCorp 5000 Incorporated TM versus Timmy's Homemade Biscuits. Say they go to court. Once side is paying their lawyer a thousand times more than the other. How can a fair trial occur here?
If a lawyer works a case that takes a reasonable lawyer a day to complete, why would you expect the same compensation as a lawyer that works on a complex case for a year?
That doesn't imply unfairness. It doesn't even imply capitalism.
The claim is that on any given case you may find a lawyer that is $100 or that is $1,000,000 for the same case
This is what creates the dual tiered legal system, if you can afford the High priced law firm, that has all the resources and talent to find every legal loop hole you win..
In the modern legal system, often times who ever has the deeper pockets wins.
Reviews in support of the defendent already coming in thick and fast, https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.summerfieldbrowne.com
> They track you on their website without any form of confirmation which is required under GDPR law. Since it's been law for well over a year I dread to think how many times this firm has broken the law themselves. I encourage all people that have visited their site to record proof of you being on their site and take these shady lawyers to court. I would advise suing for £25,000...
They might only get £750 each ("Halliday v Creation Consumer Finance Ltd") but I would definitely do that. At the very least, a complaint to the ICO.
Another review:
> Moral: DO NOT SHOP at any online store, if they use trustpilot
Absolutely. I usually take my business elsewhere if a site prominently displays Trustpilot. Where that's not to my advantage, I write to their DPO citing GDPR Article 21 and request that they do not in any way share my data with this website.