Legal profession abusing position

CeilingFly

From both personal experience, experience of friends and as per this article, it seems that some in the legal profession abuse their position to take frivolous cases of defamation / slander when it has not really happened.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/barrister-sues-politicians-for-tweets-after-abortion-radio-broadcast-36804609.html

But because they are in the profession, they both know the system and have the obvious contacts to play the game.

In my case 3 years ago, I won, but it took til 6 months ago to finally get costs that still went nowhere near the actual costs of time and hassle.

Is it time for a legal ombudsman to both bring poor standards by a minority to a public arena and also prevent utter abuse of their positions?

CeilingFly

My closed thread was not a rant and worded carefully to avoid being a rant.

Is it not time for an ombudsman office or similar to be set up for the legal profession?

A small minority abuse their knowledge / access to others in the profession to avoid being questioned about their ability / attention to detail.

You cannot make a complaint to law society unless its via your own solicitor and they are obviously wary of making such complaint as it can "get known"

Unfortunately, this small minority brings disrupute to the vast majority of the profession.

Surely an ombudsman office is required considering the number of issues you hear - I accept many will be frivolous, but there are similarly many complaints that are quite valid.

Grolschevik

CeilingFly wrote: »

My closed thread was not a rant and worded carefully to avoid being a rant.

Is it not time for an ombudsman office or similar to be set up for the legal profession?

A small minority abuse their knowledge / access to others in the profession to avoid being questioned about their ability / attention to detail.

You cannot make a complaint to law society unless its via your own solicitor and they are obviously wary of making such complaint as it can "get known"

Unfortunately, this small minority brings disrupute to the vast majority of the profession.

Surely an ombudsman office is required considering the number of issues you hear - I accept many will be frivolous, but there are similarly many complaints that are quite valid.

Need to use your own solicitor for a complaint? Not correct.

Independent oversight? Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal and the High Court.

Ombudsman? Independent Adjudicator.

New regulatory regime? Legal Services Regulatory Authority

All of this was addressed and answered in a previous related post in this forum that you contributed to: https://touch.boards.ie/thread/2057854362/1

Also, all this info is readily available on the Law Society and Bar of Ireland websites.

So yeah. Just a rant, I reckon.

Edit: for what it's worth, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal have, just in the last couple of years, censured and fined a then member of the Law Society Council (the'ruling body', so to speak) and a former solicitor employee of the Society. So, yeah. A corrupt nest of vipers all the way, then...

hullaballoo

I've reopened your other thread as the discussion might be useful for general information purposes with regard to the role of lawyers and our capacity or otherwise to abuse our position.

boombang

It's a shame there isn't a website whereby consumers could rate their solicitor...

Samuel T. Cogley

Sorry, how is the linked article any sort of abuse of a position?

the_syco

CeilingFly wrote: »

From both personal experience, experience of friends and as per this article, it seems that some in the legal profession abuse their position to take frivolous cases of defamation / slander when it has not really happened.

It seems you have a chip on your shoulder?

From the article;

Mr Ó Floinn claims that shortly after the broadcast the politicians tweeted comments that were defamatory, disparaging and damaging to his professional reputation.

So are you saying that either he should not sue for defamation as he said he was defamed, or that he should use a solicitor, when he is a solicitor?

Your post make no sense. It sounds like a rant to me.

4ensic15

the_syco wrote: »

It seems you have a chip on your shoulder?

From the article;

So are you saying that either he should not sue for defamation as he said he was defamed, or that he should use a solicitor, when he is a solicitor?

.

He is not a solicitor. Being a member of the legal profession does not mean that a person does not have a right to their good name, despite what some people would have you think.

the_syco

4ensic15 wrote: »

Being a member of the legal profession does not mean that a person does not have a right to their good name, despite what some people would have you think.

Going by the rule of a double negative, you are saying that "being a member of the legal profession does mean that a person does have a right to their good name", so I'm confused on what your rant is against?

Are you saying that the barrister should not be able to sue politicians?

4ensic15

the_syco wrote: »

Going by the rule of a double negative, you are saying that "being a member of the legal profession does mean that a person does have a right to their good name", so I'm confused on what your rant is against?

Are you saying that the barrister should not be able to sue politicians?

Are you a politician?

ohnonotgmail

the_syco wrote: »

Going by the rule of a double negative, you are saying that "being a member of the legal profession does mean that a person does have a right to their good name", so I'm confused on what your rant is against?

Are you saying that the barrister should not be able to sue politicians?

the sentence was very clear.

CeilingFly

My point is that a small minority of the legal profession use their knowledge and obvious contact to bully people and its is nigh on impossible to make a complaint about them that would have any chance of being acted upon properly.

With the financial ombudsman, you can go against a very large financial institution without the fear of a massive legal bill. You will get a fair hearing and it will be adjudicated upon fairly. No such mechanism exists in the legal profession.

Yes, you had Rate my Solicitor, but that was an equally unfair mechanism where solicitors had no real chance of reply and it was abused by people who simply disagreed with something without understanding the legal process and it was simply a rant site.

My own case, I questioned the bona fides of a solicitor (for want of giving details) and informed his client I would not proceed with a commercial transaction unless he used another solicitor. The original solicitor claimed this was defamation and decided to sue. It went to the day of the hearing before he withdrew it as he realised I was right and that I had my own contacts in the profession that ensured I had particularly good counsel. I eventually got most of my costs paid too but that was two years later. The solicitor in question is no longer practicing.


The SDT is an option, but it deals with very specific complaints and whilst probably does its best to be independent, it is very much run by the legal profession and does not seem to have a public interest person sitting on the panel.

Pat Mustard

CeilingFly wrote: »

My own case, I questioned the bona fides of a solicitor (for want of giving details) and informed his client I would not proceed with a commercial transaction unless he used another solicitor. The original solicitor claimed this was defamation and decided to sue. It went to the day of the hearing before he withdrew it as he realised I was right and that I had my own contacts in the profession that ensured I had particularly good counsel. I eventually got most of my costs paid too but that was two years later. The solicitor in question is no longer practicing.

If what you say is true, why didn't you get all of your costs out of the man who sued you?

CeilingFly

Pat Mustard wrote: »

If what you say is true, why didn't you get all of your costs out of the man who sued you?

I got almost all costs (it took 2 years) - sometimes the cost of chasing the last few bob is more that its worth.