Blogging lawyers, "cheating" and threats

The UK legal blogging community doesn't tend to get much attention from the press, but a recent bitter row involving one of its pioneers perhaps warrants a wider audience.

During the last few weeks, Simon Myerson QC of Byrom Street Chambers, author of the blog Pupillage and How to Get It, has become embroiled in an angry online spat with Oxbridge Training Contracts (OTC), a controversial company which provides model training contract and pupillage applications for prospective lawyers (see legalweek.com, 24 March).

It all started last month when law student blog Android's Reminisces brought OTC to public attention - which prompted the Bar Council to issue a warning on the Pupillage Portal website advising students against using the company's services. Myerson, meanwhile, wrote an article on his blog strongly criticising OTC and describing its services as "cheating".

This prompted OTC head of sales John Foster to respond with a podcast interview on the Charon QC blog, in which he defended the company's right to sell model applications and suggested that its employees were motivated partially by "altruism".

Myerson then hit back with an entry on his blog unpicking Foster's arguments. He followed this up with a 31 March post entitled 'Integrity and a Suitable Place For It', featuring a photo of an Italia Uno cafe located at 91 Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia, London W1 - the address given by OTC as its central London headquarters.

Myerson commented on the photo: "I think the man in the bottom right is completing someone's OLPAS application form," adding "it is satisfying that a business which attempts to make people appear as they are not seems to be run from a sandwich joint."

Foster immediately wrote Myerson a letter - which Myerson subsequently published on his blog - describing the 31 March post as "highly deceptive and defamatory". The letter continues:

"More or less every person in England... is aware that the street numbers given to premises in the UK refer usually to entire buildings and where they have them to their several floors - and not merely to the ground floor. Thus even the most casual observer... by merely tilting up his eyes by a few degrees would notice in fact that The Oxbridge Research Group (parent to OTC) is based on the four floors of 91 Charlotte Street that lie above Italia Uno."

The letter also demanded that Myerson publish a retraction of his comments and remove the offending post - imposing a time limit of "no later than 12noon this Monday [6 April]."

An unrepentant Myerson has refused to remove the post. And on Monday - after the noon deadline had expired - he published an entry on his blog featuring the following image:

Legal Week keenly awaits the next instalment in this gripping saga.