Report of Demise of RateYourSolicitor Premature

national | rights, freedoms and repression | feature Monday September 18, 2006 13:31 by orig mac consaidin, edit dot

Move to take way internet freedom

From the Newswire: Rateyoursolicitor.com was set up last March to allow Irish users of legal services to communicate their experiences of solicitors and barristers. The site provided the public with an opportunity to name and shame (or name and fame) the legal practitioners they had experience of, by awarding them a 3, 2 or 1 star rating or an AVOID rating. However, over the past couple of weeks serried ranks of lawyers have lined up in the Four Courts to try to get the site taken down. The site was indeed down all day today and today’s paper claims it is down because of a court order. In fact it is only off-line for technical reasons. It is being given broader bandwidth and other improvements and it will be back on-line within days. In the meantime it can be accessed from the www.crookedlawyer.com site by clicking on “Latest News 15th September 2006”.

Previous tales of the Internet and the law: Pirates & Hackers | Pimping the Music Industry and an Interview With A Vampire | IRMA To Sue Filesharers For Clawing Back Profits From Greedy | Indymedia Blog On Bill Gates 'dot communist' comment

The sites www.crookedlawyer.com and www.rateyoursolicitor.com have allowed hundreds of people including many lawyers themselves, to anonymously or otherwise, describe actions of good lawyers but also to describe serious abuses taken against them by bad lawyers. Many have used there own names to describe how named solicitors destroyed evidence, perjured themselves, altered documents and divulged privileged information on clients. They describe how families have been torn apart and lives made miserable by incompetent, greedy or plain crooked lawyers. None of these allegations have so far attracted defamation suits, probably because firstly, the allegations are true and the truth is not libel. But secondly, Defamation is a jury trial. These crooked lawyers know that if their abusive deeds were put before a jury of non lawyers, they would find themselves on trial, rather than those who they accused of Defamation. The legal profession have been seriously upset by the site which has been discussed on the Marion Finucane show and the Pat Kenny show and local stations all over the country

Now, out of the blue, conveniently, a harmless defamation case has come forward. According to Thursdays Irish Independent, the case is being taken by a young female barrister who has taken issue with a comment about her that was entered by a fellow lawyer. The profession of barrister is nowadays a very crowded one for young practitioners to get established in. This appears to be a novel way of becoming better known round the Law Library in order to get a few briefs. She apparently objects to the fact that her fellow male young lawyer referred to her on the web site as the 'village bicycle' and she wants it taken down and she wants damages. Quite which part of this term she objects to is not yet clear. It may be the word village since she has obviously put that behind her to practise law in the big city. Then again, it might be the word 'bicycle', since she has probably also put that low level mode of transport behind her as well. I wonder should her young colleague have called her an urban SUV instead.

In any event, in the High Court last week she blamed a totally innocent man from Clare called John Gill. The comment being so sensitive, her barristers tried strenuously to have the case heard before Judge Hannah in Camera (in private). They claimed that the term v'illage bicycle' was not fit for public consumption in open court. I ask again why not upgrade to urban SUV? Anyway, fair play to judge Hannah he did not let them bully him into adopting such a ridiculous position. He ruled that he will hear the case in open court, with jury, on 5th October next. In the meantime he has ordered poor Mr Gill to take down the comment or take down the web site.

If successful, folks this will be some precedent. If the freedom of Irish people to freely communicate on the www is to be brought down by a village bicycle we will be the laughing stock of the world. In the meantime it is just the lawyers who are the laughing stock. We invite everyone interested in freedom of cyberspace to come to the Four Courts on 5th October for a good laugh at all the wigs and gowns making fools of themselves.