Law firm Tods Murray awarded Lexcel ‘quality mark’ after pursuing pensioner for £34K photocopying demand in 16 year court nightmare

EDINBURGH based law firm Tods Murray, who pursued pensioner Andrew McNamara in Scotland’s courts for SIXTEEN YEARS to force payment for a staggering demand of THIRTY FOUR THOUSAND POUNDS for photocopying at an eye watering £4 a sheet, has been awarded the Lexcel ‘legal quality mark’ by the Law Society of England & Wales. The Lexcel award is handed out after a firm has been ‘independently’ assessed against the highest standards of management practice and customer care (Guess they forgot to ask the clients then ! – Ed)

Tods Murray’s Lexcel award comes amid a crop of other similar lapel pins & certificates handed out to solicitors recently, as part of a somewhat obvious desperate attempt by both Scottish & English industry regulators to drum up business for ailing law firms which have become infamous for battles with their clients such as the Tods Murray v Arakin where pensioner Mr McNamara has been appealing a ruling by law firm favourite judge Lord Woolman he must pay his former lawyers around £90K.

No client of Tods Murray could be tracked down to give a positive comment on the firm’s Lexcel award.

Tods Murray announced : Tods Murray secures international quality mark

Tods Murray LLP has secured Lexcel - the legal quality mark - making it the first solely Scotland-based law firm to hold the international standard.

Tods Murray, which has offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow, was awarded the Law Society of England and Wales’ prestigious accreditation having been independently assessed against the highest standards of management practice and customer care.

David Dunsire, Executive Partner at Tods Murray, said: “By securing Lexcel we are sending a clear message - that we meet international standards of customer care and service within legal practice. The legal sector in Scotland is a competitive market, so being the only solely Scotland-based law firm to have Lexcel accreditation makes us stand out. Having Lexcel under our belts says we are a law firm with a reputation for quality.”

Law Society of England & Wales President Lucy Scott-Moncrieff said: “Lexcel is an accreditation scheme which recognises best practice in legal business management, irrespective of where that practice is. As legal service provision becomes more global, so does Lexcel. Lexcel has reached into Canada, the Republic of Ireland, Poland and the Middle East. I see Lexcel as establishing itself as the legal quality mark for firms and in-house legal teams across the world.”

To gain and retain Lexcel accreditation, practices must undergo a rigorous initial then annual application and assessment process. This includes conducting suitability checks and an on-site assessment.

Neil Stevenson, Director of Representation and Professional Support at the Law Society of Scotland, added: “It is great to see a Scottish law firm gaining an internationally recognised standard. Quality marks bring value to the clients and the employees of law firms, and during these difficult economic times firms need to stand out with the particular strengths and benefits they offer.”

In comparison to the announcement of the Lexcel award, Tods Murray faced rumours it was about to go bust, which prompted Executive Partner David Dunsire to write letters to the newspapers denying his firm’s financial woes, reported here : Tods Murray or Bust

The firm is also widely known over the Taxi for McLetchie’ expenses scandal where the Scottish Conservative’s current Justice Spokesperson, David McLetchie was found to have falsely claimed parliamentary expenses for £11,500 worth of taxi journeys claiming he was travelling between the Scottish Parliament & the law firm’s offices even after an investigation by the media exposed the msp’s claims as a lie.

The scandal forced Mr McLetchie to ‘retire’ from Tods Murray and also resign his position as leader of the Scottish Conservatives , but is still a member of the Scottish Parliament.

Two Days in the City : Rights of Audience for McKenzie Friends in Scots courts could have made the difference in Tods Murray v Arakin

Andrew McNamara’s 16 year battle against a law firm may have been shortened considerably by talking McKenzie Friend reform. A SIXTEEN YEAR BATTLE in Scotland’s courts between a struggling pensioner, Andrew McNamara and the might & influence of Edinburgh law firm Tods Murray, may well have been considerably shortened if reforms implemented only a few days ago in Scotland’s courts, granting McKenzie Friends a right of audience had come much earlier, reports Catherine Simpson in the Herald newspaper. While court users in England & Wales have been able to call upon the services of McKenzie Friends, Scotland took FORTY YEARS to allow McKenzie Friends to appear in the Court of Session, many contend due to resistance from the legal profession & worries clients may chose to litigate themselves instead of hiring expensive legal teams.

An earlier report on the Tods Murray v Arakin case can be read HERE with coverage of the appeal, recently heard by the court HERE and more on the history of Arakin Ltd’s dispute with Tods Murray can be found at a website on the case, here : Tods Murray v Arakin

Legal end to 'injustice' for sole litigants

Ruling benefits those without representation

By Catherine Simpson

NEW rules which came into force this week will improve the access to justice for people forced to represent themselves in Scotland’s civil courts.

Litigants who either can’t afford or can’t secure professional representation are often hugely disadvantaged as they invariably face a team of lawyers on the other side.

But from this week in Scottish courts, people helping them with their cases, who are known as McKenzie friends, will be granted the right to speak for them.

As Lord Justice Clerk, Scotland’s second most senior judge Lord Gill published in 2009 the results of a two-year review he had chaired into the civil courts in Scotland which recommended rights of audience should be extended to McKenzie friends.

The Scottish Parliament enabled legislation to that effect and it became law on Monday, potentially ending what many campaigners have described as an injustice in the Scottish courts.

But for one family, now awaiting the final judgment in a 16-year legal battle against their former lawyers, Tods Murray, the change came an agonising five days too late.

At the age of 70, partially-sighted and partially deaf Andy McNamara, owner of contracting firm Arakin Ltd, was incredulous when his wife Janette received a letter from Lord Gill’s office on Tuesday morning last week.

Mrs McNamara, 69, had written to the new Lord President reminding him of the recommendations he made three years ago and urging him to enact them. She said it would help her husband achieve a fairer hearing in his appeal against a decision that Arakin had to pay Tods Murray more than £86,000 in unpaid fees going back to the 1990s.

Mr McNamara has been assisted through numerous court battles against Tods Murray by his daughter Carol who knows the case as well as he does but whose role has been restricted to handing her father the correct papers and advising him before he speaks.

After the two-day hearing, which ended last Thursday, Ms McNamara said: “It was hard to believe someone wasn’t having a laugh at our expense. We’ve been asking for this for some time, have written to the Lord President and to all MSPs and then we learn the day before we’re in court the change is coming, which is great, but five days too late to be any use to us.

“We told the Lord President and MSPs we believed being forced to go it alone breached my father’s human rights and that is an avenue we will explore further.”

Mr McNamara spent much of the two-day appeal hearing on his feet, struggling to read documents with a magnifying glass and often having to ask the judges _ Lords Menzies and Bracadale and Lady Cosgrove _ to repeat questions.

At one stage, he asked that his daughter be allowed to speak for him. The judges had been given copies of the letter from Lord Gill’s office, confirming the change in law from today, but after a brief conference they told him they could not grant his daughter rights of audience in advance of the change.

The outstanding litigation between Mr McNamara and Tods Murray saw a rigorous examination of Tods Murray’s fees for professional services to Arakin in the 1990s and the sums paid to account by Arakin.

Mr McNamara told the court that the paperwork showed clearly that Arakin had paid some £70,000 more than the sums invoiced for when Tods Murray sued for payment.

But Alastair Duncan, for Tods Murray, who was supported by junior counsel and a solicitor, argued Lord Woolman had been right to find against Arakin in February when he ordered the firm to pay its former lawyers £86,376.

The judges will present a written judgment at a later date.

Tods Murray v Arakin : Court of Session hears appeal over ruling client must pay former lawyers £90K in legal fees after 16 year battle

Andrew McNamara was ordered to pay £90K to Tods Murray after bitter 16 year court battle. A millionaire pensioner goes into a final battle this week in a war that has lasted 16 years to try to overturn a ruling that he must pay his former lawyers almost £90,000.

Andy McNamara will try to persuade three judges at the Court of Session that Lord Woolman was wrong to find against him and for Tods Murray in February.

By appealing, and risking landing the substantial legal costs of his adversaries, the final bill for failure could be well into six figures.

McNamara earned his reputation as a difficult client by going to war with many of the lawyers who represented his contracting firm, Arakin Ltd, and became known as ‘the client from hell’ in the 1990s.

When Tods Murray sued Arakin in 1996 for payment of fees McNamara had demanded should be taxed, he hit back and managed to get more than £100,000 knocked off their time-and-line accounts, embarrassing the firm by obtaining publicity in a national newspaper.

Amongst other cuts he made, the Auditor of the Court of Session reduced by £26,500 a £34,000 photocopying charge, which had been billed at more than £4 a sheet.

McNamara also refused to take Nigel Emslie QC’s advice to accept an offer of £175,000 to settle a dispute with his former accountants, McLachlan and Brown, despite Emslie _ then about to become Dean and now the high court judge Lord Emslie _ threatening to withdraw.

Emslie reluctantly continued to represent Arakin and the action finally settled for £1,040,000, almost six times the first offer.

More recently, McNamara became one of eight litigants branded ‘vexatious’ by the Scottish courts after the Lord Advocate made an application to that effect, largely because of the allegations McNamara made repeatedly about lawyers in open court.

The outstanding litigation between McNamara and Tods Murray should be a matter of simple arithmetic. Tods Murray’s fees for professional services to Arakin in the 1990s, and the sums paid to account have been examined by lawyers, accountants, law accountants and several judges.

On one hand, Arakin can show an overpayment of more than £2,000 on total fees of £321,000, after taxation by the Auditor.

On the other, Tods Murray’s lawyers show a deficit, accepted by Lord Woolman, by taking into account a sum of about £80,000 in outlays allowed by the Court, as well as interest and an uplift (increase) in fees allowed by the auditor, resulting in a figure of almost £409,600.

Lord Woolman therefore ordered Arakin to pay its former lawyers £86,376.

McNamara’s decision to appeal is the result of his conviction that when Tods Murray sued for £204,000 in 1996, and froze £275,000 of Arakin’s money to ensure he could defend it, the firm had no right to do so.

At the appeal, McNamara, who represents Arakin in court, will point to rules that govern a solicitor’s right to sue a client that say no action should precede taxation of disputed accounts.

He will also argue that his firm had paid Tods Murray considerably more than it had been invoiced for when the writ was lodged.

He will present a document provided by Tods Murray dating back to 1997 in which the firm admits it has always known it was not due £204,000, and a notice to admit, in which Tods Murray acknowledges Arakin had paid £70,817.87 more than sums invoiced for.

He will argue that had all these factors been taken into account, the action would have no basis.

Now aged 70 and trying to live quietly in retirement on Arran with his wife, Janette, McNamara freely admits that if he’d known how long the case would run, and the effect it would have on his health and family life, he would have paid up long ago.

But, after Lord Woolman’s opinion, which established that the lack of invoices did not negate Arakin’s obligation to pay fees, he felt unable to walk away without trying to land a decisive blow.

Having talked recently of calling time on the dispute whatever the outcome, he now admits: ‘I’ve been looking at possible routes to the Supreme Court and even to Europe.

‘I’ve got total faith in our case, but I’ve not been given much reason to date to have faith in our justice system.’

His wife has written to the new Lord President, Lord Gill, to say that the current rules covering party litigants like her husband _ who is partially deaf but must address the court without help from his daughter Carol, who assists him _ appear to breach his human rights.

As Lord Justice Clark, Lord Gill chaired a review commission that recommended McKenzie friends be granted rights of audience in the courts. The Scottish parliament passed enabling legislation, but it has not yet been implemented.

Carol McNamara has written to all MSPs to remind them of this point.

At a preliminary hearing last month, three judges, led by Lord Bonomy, agreed that Tods Murray should produce, prior to proof this week, invoices covering the additional outlays allowed by the court, which the law firm says are already lodged in the lengthy process. Mr McNamara maintains those documents have never been entered in the process.

Tods Murray’s chairman, Graham Burnside, is relaxed about the outcome. He said: "At every stage of the process we have trusted to the judgement of the courts and on every occasion to date they have found in our favour."

An earlier report on the case can be read HERE and more on the history of Arakin Ltd’s dispute with Tods Murray can be found at a website on the case, here : Tods Murray v Arakin

Tods Murray v Arakin & “Vexatious Litigants” : How Scotland’s Courts are used to protect vested interests from public’s right of access to justice

EVERY so often a case of long term litigation comes along which demonstrates a clear bias in Scotland’s justice system where hearing after hearing & ruling after ruling show a pattern forming in favour of vested interests. One such case, which began in 1996, is that of Arakin Ltd, a construction company based in the West of Scotland who were sued by an Edinburgh law firm, Tods Murray for what can only be described as an enormous sum, allegedly due in fees to Arakin. The history of Arakin Ltd’s dispute with Tods Murray online and the opening page summarises the salient points clearly and concisely. It can be found at Tods Murray v Arakin

Fighting his corner against the might, and many would say, undue influence of a law firm with links to politicians & senior figures in the Scots legal establishment, Andrew McNamara, owner of the now sequestrated Arakin Ltd, was made a “Vexatious Litigant” by the courts in what some legal observers have described “as an attempt to prevent a valid pursuit of justice via the courts against the vested interests of a law firm.”

Now, after SIXTEEN YEARS, the case is about to be heard again, by way of an appeal against a judgement issued by Lord Woolman earlier this year, who perhaps unsurprisingly, found in favour of the law firm.

Lord Woolman has recently featured in reports on Scottish Law Reporter where, coincidentally or not, additional cases heard by the same judge involving party litigants against establishment figures have taken years to be heard, and have seen every opportunity been afforded to vested interests while the rights of party litigants have been trampled.

Clearly, questions must now be asked as to why Scotland’s courts are consistently protective of the vested interests of the legal profession & establishment figures, and instead of branding members of the public as “Vexatious Litigants” just to curtail someone’s access to justice, efforts must be made to ensure justice is applied fairly to all, rather than the now expected one sided manner handed down in Scotland accompanied by lengthy opinions overtly hostile to party litigants shunned by court personalities who would rather keep their friends in legal & financial circles happy & in the money.

Janette McNamara, wife of Andrew McNamara has now spoken of how Scotland’s justice system has treated her family. Mrs McNamara writes today in Scottish Law Reporter :

By Janette McNamara,

YOU can make a dispute as complicated as you wish, but often it’s quite simple.

Look back at the accounts, the invoices and the sums paid, and it becomes a simple matter of arithmetic. Even when the sums of money are very large, the process of addition and subtraction is the same.

Can anyone believe that my husband, Andrew, and I are still in litigation with a firm of solicitors who represented us badly and overcharged us grossly, and that the courts are assisting them in denying us both justice and peace in our retirement?

It goes back to the 1980s, but began in earnest in 1996. I’m 70 in six months time and we should have enjoyed a few happy years by this time. But these people have stolen my 50s and my 60s. I don’t want to lose my 70s as well.

In 1996, our lawyers, Tods Murray, sued us for £204,000 knowing full well we didn’t owe them that sum. In many ways, it might have been easier to pay and to try to forget them, but we knew it wasn’t right so we fought back.

In 2004, they finally admitted in court before a Lord Ordinary that at most, one invoice for £8,000 remained unpaid at the time of their writ.

You might expect that the case would have caved in for Tods Murray. They had frozen a six-figure sum for years, causing our company, Arakin Ltd, severe difficulties. We had to sell a heritable property and could not make the pension payments the revenue allowed us to make each year as a result, so the effect of this will be with us forever.

But somehow, whatever Tods Murray had done, the courts, and certain judges, appeared intent on ignoring their faults and helping them to crucify us.

They had refused to render VAT invoices to us, despite our repeated requests. HM Revenue and Customs has confirmed as recently as this month (May 2012) that lawyers have no exemption from the VAT rules. Any service that attracts VAT must be billed within a short period of time by way of a VAT invoice.

Again, they admitted in writing, via their representatives, Simpson & Marwick, that they had not wished to render a VAT invoice as this would have attracted VAT. Could a member of any other profession have made such an admission in the middle of litigation without being condemned and reported to the tax authorities?

Tods Murray also admitted knowing we intended to have their accounts taxed when they demanded £204,000. The rules could not be clearer. A lawyer cannot sue a client before taxation. Yet they sued us and were allowed to do so.

An account forwarded to Rand Associates for independent audit revealed more than £70,000 of errors, later confirmed in the Auditor’s report to the court.

Tods Murray admitted that they were paid £70,817.87 in excess of the sums rendered on invoice in their Answers to our Notice to Admit lodged immediately prior to proof.

Simpson & Marwick’s letter of 9/9/99 to Arakin’s solicitor at that time states that no further invoices were rendered because they would have attracted VAT. But it also states that when the action was raised, £8,000 of fees from one invoice were outstanding from one partner’s accounts. 

This was obviously wiped out by the £70,817.87 admitted as having been overpaid on invoices relating to the other partner. 

About £62,000 was paid over and above all invoices rendered, so we owed them nothing at all, and they broke the rules by not allowing invoices to go to through taxation before suing us.

So why exactly, after 16 years, with my husband having just turned 70, are they still keeping our lives on hold? And why did Lord Woolman, in finding against us in his judgment published in February this year, seem to think that the true financial picture and all the rules relating to invoices and VAT were irrelevant?

Why was my husband branded a vexatious litigant when justifiably vexed would better reflect our situation?

Come July, when our appeal is heard, I pray we’ll receive all the answers, that we’ll finally obtain a just resolution and that we’ll be allowed to walk away with our heads high and with this farcical long-running drama finally consigned to the past.

In fighting on, we are taking a massive risk. A further defeat will land us with substantial legal fees from the other side. Our loss will be counted in six figures, not five. We are not fools. It is not pride or blind optimism that keeps us fighting. It is the knowledge that we have been honest and that we have been right all along, and the belief that in the end, when all is laid bare, justice must prevail.

One final thought, our Government is leading this country on the road to independence. We don’t know yet what the result of the referendum will be, but the Government machinery will be fully behind the push for constitutional change. Scotland’s legal system is already weakened by the small pool from which our advocates and judges are plucked. Heaven help us if the route to the Supreme Court in London, and even recourse to Europe, were blocked or made more difficult.

The case of Tods Murray v Arakin and Mr McNamara’s position as a “Vexatious Litigant” featured in the Sunday Herald :

 A-courting we will go ...

David Leask 10 June 2012 Sunday Herald

THEY are the eight Scots no-one wants to see in court.

Edward Cairns, Derek Cooney, Arun Gupta, Myles Fitzpatrick, James Bell, Martin Frost, Andrew McNamara and a Glasgow man who can not be named for legal reasons no longer have the same rights as the rest of the population to justice.

The have been ruled to be "vexatious litigants" – time-wasters who have abused the legal system and are widely seen by lawyers as obsessives and cranks. However, they have their fans as well and some view them as heroes taking on a corrupt legal system.

Their official status as vexatious litigants means they can now only take a case to civil trial if one of the country's most senior judges gives them permission; without that they are banned from court.

The Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland, is planning to put a ninth person on the banned list.

Even human rights lawyers admit there is a time when litigants stretch their right to justice beyond any reason.

Advocate Niall McCluskey said: "There is a right of access to justice. But it is not an absolute right. I don't think the court system should ever be a vehicle for people to try and present all sorts of actions and causes which are outside society's pragmatic scope.

"Putting someone on the vexatious litigant's list is an extreme measure. You can see there are very few people on the list so the courts are clearly only using the measure as a last resort.

"In a lot of these cases the litigation is just out of proportion. Many of us have had some grievance, say a parking ticket we didn't think we deserved. But most of us just pay the fine and get on with our lives.

"If you respond with a legal action that says more about you than it does about the legal system."

Another human rights advocate, Scott Blair, stresses vexatious litigants fall in to many categories, including those suffering from a condition now described as "litigious paranoia".

Others, he said, may simply be badly advised – or represent themselves, when a little bit of legal knowledge is worse than none at all.

But Blair also reckons one of the biggest problems of those who clog Scotland's overloaded court system with vexatious lawsuits is that they believe the law can fix everything. It can't.

"They may well have a grievance but it might not be a grievance that law can provide a remedy for."

So who are Scotland's eight officially "vexatious litigants"? And why do they keep suing?

THE MAN WHO SUED 18 TIMES

HE was, he says, accused of killing his wife and plotting a Dunblane-style massacre at a Glasgow primary school. So he sued. A lot. Since 2007 the single father has filed 18 civil actions against teachers, social workers and fellow parents, including those he alleges told "malicious lies" about him.

Legally, we can only call him AB. But every court clerk in Glasgow knows his real name. Because AB is one of the most prolific and persistent litigants in the country.

So prolific, indeed, that earlier this year he was formally listed as a vexatious litigant – a VL – by one of the nation's most senior judges, Lady Paton, at the request of the Lord Advocate.

He can still sue – but only if one of Scotland's most serious judges thinks he has a case. And that is exactly what he intends to do – to overturn his status as a vexatious litigant.

"I am not at war with the legal system," he said last night. "But I am going to fight the ruling that named me as a VL.

"I believe Lady Paton's judgment is grossly one-sided and partial to the Scottish Government's cause."

His problems date back to 2006 and run-ins with his children's head teacher at their Glasgow school.

Worse – as the husband of an estranged foreign wife whom he reported missing – he claims he was besieged by innuendo and gossip over her disappearance.

Word, he says, went around that he killed the mother of his children. Then, he alleges, social workers accused him of preparing a Dunblane-style massacre at the school.

AB's dispute with the school was serious. He believed his children's head teacher had a vendetta against him.

In fact, it was the headteacher who first took legal action, securing an interim interdict that prevented him from approaching her.

"I was the person that was sued initially," he said yesterday.

"Everything I have done since has been to defend my reputation in the community as well as the reputation of my family.

"I can't have people in the community circulating these defamatory comments – comments that are the product of sheer malice.

"It is not acceptable that small-minded individuals go about just making stories up about an innocent man. It's immoral and it's legally wrong."

The father was eventually to find himself in the dock, in 2008, charged with breach of the peace for sending a teacher a threatening letter – saying she would go to hell for making up lies about him. He was also charged with alarming her by approaching her.

He was convicted but the Scottish Criminal Case Review Commission – the body best known for casting doubts on the convictions of the Lockerbie bomber – came to the conclusion he might have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. His conviction was held up on appeal.

"But now the father is going to the European Court of Human Rights to contest the breach of the peace, even though it only resulted in a £350 fine and a non-harassment order.

Last night he made it clear he would be willing to go all the way to Strasbourg to have his name removed from the list of those viewed as "vexatious litigants". He is already trying to pursue a human-rights appeal.

Lady Paton, in her judgment, said AB "responded to situations which he perceived to be unsatisfactory or objectionable by raising a multiplicity of writs, often without reasonable grounds, using extravagant, hostile and unnecessarily wordy and repetitive language."

She added: "The litigations instituted by him have proved time-consuming, costly and upsetting for many individuals and public service departments."

The case that's gone on for so long everyone has forgotten what it's about

ANDY McNamara doesn't like lawyers. Although they have helped his golf. "I can drive a ball 630 metres just thinking about them," the one-time multi-millionaire jokes from his Arran garden. "They are dreadful people."

McNamara (pictured left) is no stranger to the courts. The 70-year-old has been in constant litigation since the 1980s.

Since 1996 he has been defending a case by a law firm that used to represent him – and leading his own counterclaims.

Subjects of his legal wrath include Henry McLeish, whom McNamara argued should answer for the decisions of sheriffs the then First Minister "employed".

That, and other actions, led to him being one of only eight men in Scotland listed as a "vexatious litigant", dramatically restricting his access to the courts.

Next month, McNamara will see what could be his final showdown in the case.

Few lawyers have missed the matter of Tods Murray, a major firm of solicitors, against Arakin Ltd, a Glasgow firm of contractors owned by McNamara, rumbling through the courts. However, few can remember what it is all about.

Legal insiders compare Tods Murray v Arakin Ltd to Jarndyce v Jarndyce, the fictional decades-long dispute featured in Charles Dickens's Bleak House.

Tods Murray v Arakin was raised in 1996, when the law firm sued Arakin for what it said were outstanding fees for legal services in another dispute. The firm froze Arakin's accounts but when McNamara refused to pay, it sued.

McNamara has had some legal success. Auditors slashed the disputed bill, which included photocopying fees that worked out at £4 a sheet.

But at the Court of Session earlier this year Lord Woolman ordered Arakin to pay nearly £90,000 and rebuked McNamara for making legal allegations.

Next month, McNamara will appeal that decision, risking hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal fees.

No-ome from Tods Murray, which has always maintained the bill was fair, was available late last week to comment.

The row has cost McNamara dearly, physically and financially. "My health has suffered. I should have retired a decade ago and here I am, still working."

His firm has gone from employing 120 staff to a "skeleton" that now only employs two of his grandsons. Unusually, the company has officially been in liquidation for eight years.

McNamara added: "The reason I was declared a vexatious litigant was quite simply because I did not know court procedure. Which is hardly surprising because I am an electrician to trade."

So would he fight a legal bill again?

"Certainly not. But we have gone so far now, we are not going to let them go."

His wife, Janette, added: "We are taking a massive risk. A further defeat will land us with substantial legal fees. Our loss will be counted in six figures, not five. We're not fools. It is not pride or blind optimism that keeps us fighting. It is the knowledge that we have been honest and right, and the belief that justice must prevail."

They've sued a chief constable, a First Minister and local authorities ...

Edward Cairns

Cairns, of Glasgow, has written so many complaints about the police that they have now been given official permission from their watchdog to ignore him.

His court actions include trying, and failing, to sue the chief constable of Strathclyde for £4m.

Cairns has been battling authorities since he accused ex-colleagues of fraud in 1993. Police investigated but fiscals decided there insufficient evidence to prosecute.

Martin Frost

In a quarter of a century Frost was involved in more than 500 litigations, only a tenth of them in Scotland but one of them against former First Minister Henry McLeish. His cases have been heard in England, Europe, the US and Canada. The serial litigator also helped others, including Andrew McNamara (above). That didn't impress Scotland's senior judges, who restricted his access to justice in 2006. Now more campaigner than litigator, Frost runs a website warning, among other things, of the dangers of "Legal Abuse Syndrome", when people are driven to psychiatric and emotional problems by the justice system.

Derek Cooney

Cooney has been in many legal battles. In one he lost his council house in Dumfries and Galloway. In another, he challenged Glasgow's housing stock transfer.

He once managed to get sheriff officers to turn up at the offices of Glasgow Housing Association to demand court expenses of £34. They had to pay.

Remarkably, many of his actions took place after judges decided that, despite his long-standing status as a vexatious litigant, he could sue.

James Bell

It started as a row over an estate. It ended with Bell expressing in court "distrust of the entire judicial system". Bell, from Ayrshire, was a serial "party litigant" (someone who represents himself/herself in court). He was declared a vexatious litigant in 2001, but argued this breached the European Convention on Human Rights. Judges disagreed.

MYLES FITZPATRICK

His medical records, says Fitzpatrick, were shredded in 1998 because he demanded access to them. He has been campaigning and raising actions ever since. Last year he was listed as a vexatious litigant.

ARUN GUPTA

Gupta's run-ins with the courts are understood to have begun when he suffered sequestration (bankruptcy) proceedings in the early 1990s.

Tods Murray or bust ?

Tods Murray is not going bust, writes David Dunsire in the Scotsman today .. but, should it be that dear old Tods Murray, need a sub, they could always ask the Law Society for a bail out .. however that might be at the risk of being called “chancers” by others in the legal profession …

From the Scotsman letters :

Letters: Firms hit by scare stories

Published Date: 15 March 2009

IN AN era where the media is often criticised for spreading bad news, I welcomed your article 'One in 10 solicitors axed as law firms hit by worst recession' (March 8). The law is a profession that finds it difficult to deal openly with such issues. Yet these are unprecedented times and lawyers, too, need to face up to the unique challenges we face.

Traditional areas of stable growth and prosperity such as property and corporate M&A transactions have been extraordinarily hit and the legal marketplace is having to adjust quickly and robustly. A lot of hard commercial decisions have to be taken to cut costs and generate and support additional sources of business.

But things are being made tougher for firms such as ours as unfounded rumours seem to sweep over individual firms. We have been the target of a lot of negative speculation and malicious scaremongering. We have heard that we are on our bank's 'at-risk' register, that partners have refused to inject more cash into the firm and that we are, indeed, about to go into administration. All of this is untrue. The firm is financially stable.

In line with the actions of many legal firms in this economic climate, we have regrettably had to lay off staff, and we will continue to review our costs and our business streams as is prudent, and just as many other businesses are currently doing. Trading continues to be tough in the legal market and beyond, but we remain focused and confident in our strategy. It is, therefore, hugely disappointing that we have to spend seemingly endless amounts of time deflecting rumours that can only serve to undermine the profession as a whole and a strong and responsible Scottish employer in particular.

David Dunsire, executive partner for Tods Murray LLP, Edinburgh