When the Credibility or 'Quality' of Clients Ceases to Matter, It's About Helping Rich Companies Like Microsoft Censor Critics (No Matter the Risks)
Bad ideas typically result in undesirable outcomes [1, 2]
Microsofters from the US have decided to weaponise some poor firm in London as a vehicle of constant harassment against my wife and I. It's not like anyone but us is the victim here; not only did we endure a lot of harassment from these Microsofters (for years already). There are also those who got literally strangled by the Microsofters. No judge would rule in favour of such despicable people. But to them it's not about winning a case, it's about vexing and harassing prolific critics of Microsoft - same thing it was all about... all along.
I was trying to figure out why Brett Wilson LLP would willingly facilitate if not participate in such an evil deed. The more I asked about Brett Wilson LLP (even in April 2024), the more apparent it became that Brett Wilson LLP had become notorious for taking some of the very worst cases - i.e. cases that no other law firm would dare touch (risk to reputation and low chance of winning). That has not changed. A year later it's probably even worse because as recently as some days ago in the Press Gazette wrote about a case connected to Brett Wilson LLP, which is working on SLAPP for Dale Vince (KB-2024-004147). To quote from the article:
Staines said: “We could have appealed this judgement, but Dale would inevitably have used his wealth to continue wearing us down, this has been going on for a year, life is just too short…“We argued unsuccessfully that we expressed an opinion about political statements that he made, the judge ruled we made statements of fact.
“I am strongly of the opinion that these types of actions, which are political arguments that Dale Vince has publicly characterised in partisan terms, should be prohibited under the proposed cross-party supported legislation to block SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation).”
So their method is just to tire down the other side, not to actually win cases. They celebrated this outcome in their blog at the end of last month, not surprisingly as Vince pays them. There's also this article. It speaks of "Annabell Hood of Brett Wilson LLP, representing Vince".
It's basically a very vexatious litigant and hyper-sensitive person, as other people rightly note. His business is being destroyed by his own political views. To quote: "Green industrialist Dale Vince is seeking an injunction to stop a Conservative peer he is suing for libel from publishing his lawyer’s response to the letter before action on the grounds that it too is defamatory, it emerged yesterday."
Same firm: "Brett Wilson, Mr Vince’s solicitors, on 16 May 2024, that the peer threatened to publish. The 16-page letter cited various comments about Hamas and its actions on 7 October 2023 that Brett Wilson had made."
So They try to censor people who merely explain what's happening or express an honest opinion/interpretation. And that seems to be consistent with Brett Wilson fronting for people who hate Israel and make rather despicable comments in public, even treating women like garbage in the whole process (misnaming them, helping men who strangle women etc.) so that barely surprises me at all.
Is there any vetting or filtering of potential client? Is this firm so desperate for money that it would do anything for quick cash from Microsoft people? No doubt some of this money came from Microsoft; it's only a matter or a question of how much of it...
There's a long history to that effect, e.g. sheltering white-collar crime for profit:
More here:
Dan Neidle also wrote: "Some of the UK's worst libel lawyers have written to the Law Society demanding a role in shaping anti-SLAPP rules. They say the real problem is unfair criticism of media lawyers. Here's a very small violin, and here's a thread."
Mr. Neidle is aware of what Brett Wilson LLP did to us. He too deferred to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), where we have an open and impending complaint.
A relatively recent article by RPC (published only months before the Microsofters did this to us) spoke about the phenomenon in more general terms:
The booster of SLAPP (by the rich) is no other than Wilson from Brett Wilson. Quoting the above: "Alan Rusbridger, the editor of Prospect who edited the Guardian for 20 years, read part of a comment piece in the Law Society Gazette, a magazine for solicitors. In it article Iain Wilson, the managing partner of London law firm Brett Wilson, branded the campaign against Slapps as “just another attack on the law of defamation” and argued that lawyers “are just facilitators and go-betweens”. He said that he found the perception that defamation lawyers help the wealthy suppress public debate “offensive,” insisting that in most cases the defendant has the “upper-hand financially.”"
Brett Wilson was calling people who resort to strangulation of women "extremely generous" (for making an "offer", or rather a threat, to censor what actually happened).
I don't know how Wilson sleeps at night. Maybe sleeping pills. Or maybe cognitive dissonance.
They (or he) used the words "threat" and "extremely generous" in the same letter!
Can't make this up! What are we, in Sicily? Well, the irony was not lost... neither overlooked nor lost. █