The Legal 500 legal ratings website has been taken down as the company investigates how negative reviews of lawyers were published online.
The eagerly awaited directory listing lawyers and their best qualities went live yesterday – but in some cases containing highly critical feedback and seemingly incongruous descriptions of individuals.
As of 9am today, the site was ‘down for maintenance’, with no indication of when it would be restored. The company has apologised to customers and is working on safeguards to prevent a repeat.
The Gazette has seen several screengrabs from listings before they were removed. Several go into details about lawyers’ alleged failings while others are more concise.
One barrister was described as ‘adequate but disorganised and indecisive’. Another was said to be a ‘formidable oral advocate’ but the review added: ‘Her written work is good but can sometimes be sloppy. The main area of concerns at the moment is xxxxxx’s speed. We are often waiting for many weeks or months for advice, and then everything is being rushed.’
Under one lawyer it simply said: ‘Nothing of note’, while bizarrely a named barrister was simply described as ‘Impressive building and facilities’.
It is unclear where these comments have come from.
The problem does not appear to have been universal as many law firms and chambers have posted in the past 24 hours with links to their positive listings.
A spokesperson for Legal 500 said: ‘During a recent website update, an error in the upload process resulted in a small amount of testimonial information being published incorrectly. As soon as we became aware of the issue, we removed the content from our website and began additional verification checks.
‘We recognise the importance of ensuring that the information we publish is accurate and take this matter extremely seriously. We apologise to our customers for any concern or inconvenience caused and are taking immediate steps to strengthen our quality assurance processes and safeguards to prevent a recurrence.
Entry into the Legal 500 is based on research, client feedback and peer reviews, with firms submitting details about their work, key cases and client referees.
Legal 500 publisher Legalease this week settled a pay dispute with researchers by agreeing to meet staff demands for a flat £2,000 pay increase, an increase in sick leave and a reduction in days per week demanded in the office.