I’m told that lawyers tend to be a sober lot, but this week there may have been a collective cheer in wine bars up and down the land after Mr Justice Tugendhat upheld a defamation claim against the owner of the ‘Solicitors from Hell’ website. The website, which attracts about 2,500 hits a day, is the scourge of solicitors who it names and shames for being “corrupt, negligent, dishonest, crooked, fraudulent lawyers”.

‘Solicitors from Hell’was sued by Andy Bressington, head of family at Wiltshire law firm Awdrey, Bailey and Douglas. Bressington applied for a High Court injunction to have a client comment about him removed from the site in September of last year. He and his firm also sought a restraining order preventing ‘Solicitors from Hell’ from repeating defamatory comments and wanted the website to be compelled to publish an apology – see Katy Dowell’s story in The Lawyer.

After complaining about the comment, Awdrey, Bailey and Douglas was referred to the website’s ‘administration and monitoring scheme’ which for a one-off payment of £299 would remove it from the site. Having none of that, Bressington commenced legal proceedings and filed a claim at the High Court.

Kordowski filed three defences and claimed that the words published on the ‘Solicitors from Hell’ website were “true” and “fair comment”. It then emerged that the complaint had not been made by a disgruntled client after all, but had in fact been posted by the ex-husband of one of Awdrey, Bailey and Douglas’ clients.

Tugendhat ruled that the site’s creator, Rick Kordowski, had abused court process in how he went about mounting a defence to the claim. He held that “In these circumstances it’s plain and obvious that the defence or defences must be struck out. Whether taken together, or separately, none of the documents or witness statements served by Mr Kordowski disclose any reasonable ground for defending this claim.” It has been reported that Kordowski hopes to appeal the decision.

This is not the first time that ‘Solicitors from Hell’ has found itself in court over comments on the website. In February Mr Justice Jones described comments on the site about a young solicitor as “baseless, abusive, malicious and an unwarranted slur on the competency and probity of a young lawyer”. The solicitor in question was awarded £10,000 in damages.

But there are those who have featured on the site who believe that its aims are well placed. Mark Manley, a defamation lawyer at Brabners Chaffe Street in Liverpool, who had comments made about him by the other side’s client in a case removed from the website told the Guardian:

“It is a shame that some of the basic safeguards don’t operate – a consumer-based website to enable members of the public to make legitimate statements about service – is good. Unfortunately, currently there appears no control to prevent somebody making indiscriminate unjustified and/or false allegations against a solicitor – whether they had service from them or not.”