Tag Archives: DLA Piper

The Solicitors Regulation Authority isn’t ” fit for purpose” to protect the public and whistleblowers

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Solicitors Regulation Authority logo

There appears to be growing evidence that the Solicitors Regulation Authority,(SRA), the body that regulates and upholds professional standards for lawyers, is inconsistent in its judgements, over sympathetic to lawyers, particularly from large firms, and is not regarded by the public and whistleblowers as protecting their interests.

I took up the treatment of two whistleblowers who separately complained to the SRA about lawyers acting for the Sellafield nuclear waste site and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) recently. . Both complaints were rejected by the SRA who said the lawyer had behaved correctly. Yet they raised serious questions about the use of Non Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) to crush people complaining to regulators and use Subject Access Requests and Freedom of Information requests to obtain information from public authorities.

alison McDermott

One, Alison McDermott, who lost a consultancy contract after exposing bullying at the nuclear plant, even asked her former MP, Philip Davies, to complain about her complaint to the SRA being used against her by lawyers in a costs hearing. The chief executive of the SRA, Paul Philip, rejected this and cited the NDA’s view that she had acted “‘vexatiously, abusively, disruptively or otherwise unreasonably’ in the way that
her employment proceedings were conducted.” In fact both organisations lost most of their £40,000 claim against her.

She had previously complained about Deshpal Paneseer KC, a barrister from Old Square Chambers, representing the nuclear site, for the language he used against her saying she was a fundamental liar but got nowhere with this.

The costs claim included trying to get retrospectively the costs of a freedom of information request that Sellafield had granted. In fact there is no provision under the FOI Act for retrospective claims – the public authority has to decide within 20 working days of the application whether to grant it or not.

The second whistleblower – who I have not named – complained to the SRA about Emma Mills, a solicitor with DLA Piper, a proposed NDA ( this one known as a COT3) which demanded he withdraw all FOIs and Subject Access Requests and a complaint to a regulatory authority or face a £14,000 costs hearing despite withdrawing his case at an employment tribunal.

He wrote : “I am a Whistleblower acting in the public interest, and I regard the behaviour of Emma Mills and the Respondent as menaces and harassment, pushing me to accede unwillingly into signing a COT 3 contract which is not in my best interest, and under the threat of pursuing me for costs if I do not sign the COT3 contract.”

Again the SRA rejected this and again it is not lawful under the FOI Act as there is no provision in the Act for an organisation to ban a person using FOI. This was confirmed by the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Inconsistences in judgements

The inconsistency is shown by a recent decision by the SRA over a similar case reported on Linked In by Loopline Media. The full article is here. A law firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe (UK) LLP had been employed by a German firm Payone, a Digital payments service firm, based in Frankfurt with employees in the UK. The report found the law firm had tried to impose a settlement with a whistleblower to withdraw a complaint to the Pensions Regulator that it was breaking UK law by failing to provide a proper pension for employees. The SRA found the law firm had could have negatively impacted the reputation of the legal profession. Orrick’s conduct was found to fall short of the SRA’s ethical standards, prompting regulatory interception by way of a letter of advice. 

However the firm have been treated with kid gloves. No disciplinary action is being taken and a full report is not being published. The Pensions Regulator is investigating the firm.

Damning conclusion on the Legal Lens blog

The state of the SRA is thoroughly criticised in a post, also on Linked in, by John Barwell, a data privacy expert. In a damning blog, he points out multiple failures by the SRA. questioning whether a body funded by solicitors can really police solicitors. His damning conclusion is :

“The Solicitors Regulation Authority was established to protect the public and ensure that the legal profession operates with integrity. However, its track record shows that it is a regulator in name only, failing to achieve these goals. The mishandling of cases involving prominent law firms is not just an isolated failure—it is symptomatic of a regulator that has lost its way. Without significant reform, the SRA risks becoming an even more useless entity, incapable of holding the legal profession accountable. It is time for the SRA to step up, enforce its regulations consistently, and restore public confidence in its ability to regulate the legal profession effectively. Until then, it will remain a toothless watchdog, incapable of fulfilling its vital role in the justice system.”

I would add more thing – there is a question mark over its choice of solicitors to do its work – especially if you are a whistleblower in the NHS. The law firm which holds the contract is Capsticks, which also holds a major contract with the NHS to represent trusts. It is fiercely proactive in pursuing whistleblowers trying to expose patient safety concerns in the NHS and earns a substantial income – funded by the taxpayer – to represent trusts in these cases. If Capsticks is seen as bringing the profession into disrepute – a complainant may report them to the SRA only to find that Capsticks handles their cases. I know of one barrister who did spot what he thought was bad behaviour but he told me it was not worth going to the SRA about Capsticks since the SRA was their client.

I asked the SRA for a comment on my two cases last week but they have not released it yet. I will put it up when it arrives.

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Sellafield Whistleblower Case: Claimant faces a £20,000 legal bill for necessary Freedom of Information and Subject Access Requests

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Alison McDermott: Whistleblower

By Philip Whiteley and David Hencke

A law firm in the Sellafield whistleblowing case has put in a bid for £20,000 costs against the claimant Alison McDermott, in part to deal with Freedom of Information requests – even though it emerged at the Tribunal hearing that the firm’s client had failed substantially to provide relevant evidence.

The costs application by Pinsent Masons on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, if successful, could set a precedent that weakens a citizen’s right to request information. It would appear to undermine the will of Parliament, given that when the Freedom of Information Act was passed MPs specifically rejected the idea of levying a fee for FoI requests.

The other law firm in the case, DLA Piper, simultaneously put in a bid for £20,000 costs against Ms McDermott – the maximum allowed without being subject to a further hearing – listing other factors, principally changes the claimant made in the detail of her case.

Sellafield site Pic credit: gov.uk

At the three hearings in the case held so far there has been overwhelmingly strong evidence indicating that Ms McDermott’s FoI requests were both proportionate and necessary. She said: “The governing body [the NDA] in its ordinary disclosure, released one email. Then, when I put in direct subject access requests, many more emails proved that they had been asking questions about the termination of my contract. Then, at the hearing it emerged that Heather Roberts [former HR director at Sellafield] had withheld a key document that said that the NDA was very concerned about the timing of my termination and that conversations had been held. This information was never released.

“The Freedom of Information requests also revealed that contracts had been awarded for HR services, including EDI [equality, diversity and inclusion] services, for the value of £17 million. It was only after that that they [Sellafield] switched from financial reasons [for dismissal] to one of performance.”

Ms McDermott, an independent EDI consultant hired by the nuclear plant Sellafield, had her contract terminated the first working day after making a report detailing systemic discrimination and bullying at the plant, a pattern confirmed by a BBC investigation which reported earlier this year.

At the tribunal hearing in June-July 2021 her barrister, James Arnold, pointed to directly relevant evidence only coming to light shortly before the hearing – after a period of more than two years since litigation began. He was not contradicted by either Respondent (see our coverage on 30 June). This hampered Mr Arnold’s ability to call witnesses, and cross-examine them. Ms McDermott was not successful in linking the detriment she experienced to the reports she made, although she is appealing the ruling.

Law Firm Pinsent Masons claimed FOI requests were ” vexatious”

The law firm, Pinsent Mason, claimed that the requests for Freedom of Information and Subject Access Requests, were part of vexatious, abusive, disruptive and unreasonable behaviour by Alison McDermott against both Sellafield and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

In a letter to the court the firm said she had “submitted four Data Subject Access Requests and six Freedom of Information Requests over the last three years, the majority of which were complex and involved significant work and additional legal time and cost by the Second Respondent [the NDA] to answer.”

It added it meant ”significant inhouse legal resource time and wider staff management time responding to data subject access requests and Freedom of Information Requests linked to the claim”.

Pinsent Mason said the NDA had spent £200,000 fighting the case and wanted £20,000 – the maximum it can claim at a tribunal – back.

Solicitors Regulation Authority takes no action against law firms

A critical response came from the Solicitors Regulation Authority who claimed that Ms McDermott had confused the difference between using all the information from Subject Access Requests with what was relevant to the case at the tribunal. The letter suggested that she should have highlighted more information from the requests if she thought the tribunal was not looking at the issue – citing the ruling from the judge.

The letter from the SRA making this point, dated 30 September 2021, cites from an earlier Tribunal ruling – following the strike-out hearing in July 2020. This was fully one year before the full hearing, where further directly relevant evidence came to light, as noted by Mr Arnold, including the correspondence in which the governing body admitted to nervousness about the timing of her dismissal.

DLA Piper wipes metadata and says it was a mistake

On another matter, as reported earlier, metadata was wiped from a piece of evidence in the case while in possession of DLA Piper, representing Sellafield, shielding information on authorship and time of creation of the document. The metadata was released to the claimant upon request.

The matter was referred to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which decided in September to take no action. It accepted that this was a genuine mistake by DLA Piper, although its own investigation was inconclusive.

Pinsent Masons, for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, did not respond to a request for a statement or interview.

A spokesman for DLA Piper said: ‘As a matter of course, DLA Piper does not comment on client matters. We refute allegations of wrongdoing on the firm’s part. The employment tribunal’s decision is open to the public and we would refer you to this for details of the case and the outcome.’ The Solicitors Regulation Authority did not respond to a request for an interview or statement.