Dodgy lawyers across Scotland have another electronic bloodhound dogging their trail.
The new kid on the block - hot on the heels of that original e-scourge of the ethically challenged, Scotland Against Crooked Lawyers - is lawfullawyers.co.uk, based in the spare room of business consultant Matthew Campbell's home in Conon Bridge, near Dingwall. Since it opened for business a month ago, it has had almost 300 individuals contacting it, and numerous postings - all without any advertising or trumpet blowing.
The aim of lawfullawyers is simple, says Campbell: "It was incorporated to give the general public and solicitors and advocates an opportunity to discuss the results of civil or criminal cases after their decisions have been reached by the courts.
"Members of the general public are invited to express their views of the standard of service they received from their appointed legal representative and the way the matter was handled at that particular court. Matters pertaining to appeals are also welcome."
All very reasonable. However, if the previous experience of that other lawyer-watch site is anything to go by, Campbell's altruistic aims could well meet with a less than complaisant response.
In 2004, the pressure group dedicated to exposing corrupt Scottish lawyers, Scotland Against Crooked Lawyers (Sacl), had its internet service provider in the US switch off its service. At the time, the allegations flew fast and furious that justice minister Cathy Jamieson had a hand in its demise. At the time she admitted in a written answer to Phil Gallie, Tory MSP, that the site was "potentially defamatory", and that Scottish Courts Service officials had contacted the website's internet service provider, Freewebs. However, she stressed that "no demands" were made.
But later, in a letter to Sacl, Freewebs said: "Unfortunately, the parties you have offended have aggressively pursued the takedown of this site, and the British free-speech laws are not as forgiving (as US laws)."
Sacl has featured "rogues' galleries" of lawyers alleged to be corrupt, but Campbell says he has no personal or political axe to grind. Although he is "flying the site solo", he insists that all complaints, observations and "advice" will be vetted before posting, and anything libellous, or offensive will be edited out.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article