ACS:Law's Andrew Crossley Tells Tribunal 'I Will Fight This Tooth and Nail'

Friday was expected to see the MediaCAT v Adams & Ors cases back at the Patents County Court. Otherwise known as the ACS:Law cases, lead by Andrew Crossley - the solicitor that has since been forced to close down his law firm and been declared bankrupt, the cases have been ongoing since January this year.

However, despite on Thursday evening and during Friday the court’s cause list showing the hearing as taking place, it was evident on the internet elsewhere (primarily Twitter) that the hearing was cancelled, possibly to be rescheduled.

The primary source of the information that the hearing on Friday was cancelled was Ralli - the firm solicitors leading the case for the defendants (MediaCAT being, in case of any doubt, the prosecution). It’s not yet apparent as to the cause of the cancellation or if it is likely to be rescheduled.

For those of you that have thus been denied your expected ACS:Law news I thought I’d write a short post.

I was picking through my notes from the short appearance of Andrew Crossley before the Solicitor’s Disciplinary Tribunal a couple of weeks back (prior to his hearing proper, expected in October), and found a few bits I’d not previously blogged that I thought I’d share.

Here they are:

In discussions around his requests to the tribunal Crossley stated that while he inherited the ‘processes and procedures’ of his speculative invoicing scheme from Davenport Lyons he had adapted and improved upon them. Crossley told the tribunal that his operation was ‘far superior’ to that of David Gore and Brian Miller at Davenport Lyons. Evidently his recent experiences (ie. the collapse of the claims he started, the failure of his firm and his own bankruptcy) have failed to have any impact on his lack of humility.

Crossley also said that the allegations of the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA) ‘verge on implying criminality’ and observed that ‘it would appear that my practising certificate is on the line’.

However while arguing that he would struggle to fight the case given the ‘inequality in arms’ of his resources versus those of the SRA he came out with a turn of phrase which gives every indication of an interesting hearing in October, declaring of the case against him: ‘I would fight this tooth and nail’.

As he might’ve said in a website statement in the past, ‘exciting times ahead’.