Monday 16 January 2012

Shamed Solicitor faces the SRA

law stuff
From ISP Review 16/01/12:

The notorious boss of failed solicitors firm ACS:Law UK and winner of the 2011ISPA Internet Villain award, Andrew Crossley (Solicitor ID 150435), will at 10:00am this morning face a substantive hearing in front of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT).

The Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) has tabled seven charges against Crossley, not least for "[attempting] to take unfair advantage of other persons" (broadband ISP customers) and that of providing "false information" to a court.

SRA Charges vs Andrew Crossley (ACS:Law)

The Tribunal has certified that there is a case to answer in respect of allegations which are or include that [Crossley] :-

1) Allowed his independence to be compromised.

2) Acted contrary to the best interests of his clients.

3) Acted in a way that was likely to diminish the trust the public places in him or in the legal profession.

4) Entered into arrangements to receive contingency fees for work done in prosecuting or defending contentious proceedings before the Courts of England and Wales except as permitted by statute or the common law.

5) Acted where there was a conflict of interest in circumstances not permitted, in particular because there was a conflict with those of his clients.

6) Used his position as a Solicitor to take or attempt to take unfair advantage of other persons being recipients of letters of claim either for his own benefit or for the benefit of his clients.

7) Acted without integrity in that he provided false information in statements made to the Court.

(AKA - taking the SRA Code of Conduct with a pinch of salt, I believe).

It might be jumping the gun, but I sense that Crossley’s career as a solicitor may have run its course.  Still, give it a few years, and I’m sure there’ll be a certain Mr Crossley providing legal consultancy services to clients out there. Particularly the ones with short memories.

5 comments:

  1. Andro! ... long time, no commenty.. :p

    He's accused of various bits of naughtiness...

    According to Wikipedia ...for starters... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACS:Law) :

    ACS:Law first started claims against suspected copyright infringement through peer-to-peer file sharing in May 2009. In November 2009, they announced plans to initiate claims against a further 25,000 individuals; a batch of 10,000 dunning letters were sent out in the first two weeks of January 2010.

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    Replies
    1. All sounds legit to me! Haha! :D

      Yeah, I've been a bit preoccupied with work lately... Plan to return to blogging/commenting shortly! :D

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  2. BTW what do you think about the new comments look on here?? Looks a bit laggy to me...

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  3. Not quite sure what 'laggy' means but, I think the new structure looks a complete mess.

    Plus the CSS seems to have screwed itself on Law Actually in the last few days and it's suddenly interpreting comments as blockquoted text. Another bit of tweaking in the customer CSS thingy on blogger then.

    *Groan*

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