There are bad days at the office, and then there is accidentally showing the world what clients really think of the lawyers you have just ranked among the best in the country. Including, apparently, that one of them is sexually attracted to fish.
That is roughly where Legal 500 found itself on Friday. The legal directory, published by London-based Legalease, switched its website off for "maintenance" a day after its latest UK rankings went live on Thursday, October 1. Within hours of launch, lawyers had spotted that some barristers' entries came with feedback that was never meant to see daylight.
The comments doing the rounds on social media and in the legal trade press make for uncomfortable reading if you happen to be named in them. One barrister was summed up as "adequate but disorganised and indecisive". Another's written work was said to be occasionally sloppy, with clients complaining of waiting weeks or months for advice. One entry read, in full, "Nothing of note", while another barrister's chambers earned praise only for its "impressive building and facilities". The fish remark, reported by rollonfriday.com and cityam, has travelled furthest of all.
Not everyone was caught out. Plenty of firms and sets spent Thursday cheerfully sharing their listings online before the site went dark. The directory ranks insurance practices too, so many of the firms that act for insurers, brokers and Lloyd's syndicates will have been nervously checking their own entries.
Legal 500 blamed a technical slip. In a statement, the publisher said an error during the upload process in a website update led to "a small amount of testimonial information being published incorrectly". It said it removed the material as soon as it found out, apologised to customers and is tightening its quality assurance checks.
The timing could hardly be worse. Around 60 Legal 500 researchers, members of the Unite union, had spent more than a fortnight on strike over pay after turning down a 3.4% offer in favour of a flat £2,000 rise, which they argued would do more for the lowest paid. Starting salaries for researchers are understood to be about £30,000, and the team handles more than 60,000 law firm submissions a year. This week Legalease agreed to the flat £2,000 increase, along with more sick leave and fewer required days in the office.
There is no evidence the dispute had anything to do with Thursday's error, and the company has firmly rejected separate claims about its editorial standards. But a business that sells credibility has had a rough few weeks.
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For the publisher, this sits squarely in media liability territory. Media liability and media errors and omissions policies are built for exactly this kind of mess: defamation, breach of confidence, invasion of privacy and the legal bills that follow. As Hiscox UK underwriter Robbie Wood told Insurance Business in our guide to media liability for brokers, such cover is meant to respond with defence costs, settlements and damages.
Whether any barrister would actually sue is another matter. Under section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013, a statement is only defamatory if it has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm to the claimant's reputation. A publisher in this position might argue the remarks were genuine client opinion, taken down within a day. And whether a jibe about fish could ever be taken seriously enough to do serious harm is, frankly, a question best left to a defamation silk.
There is a data angle too. Feedback about named individuals is personal data, and the Information Commissioner's Office guidance on accuracy expects organisations to take reasonable steps to correct or erase information that is incorrect or misleading. Pulling the site quickly will help on that front.
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The people with the bruised egos have far less to claim on. Self-employed barristers in England and Wales must carry professional indemnity cover through the Bar Mutual Indemnity Fund, but PI protects against claims from clients for negligent work. It does not pay out because a directory made you look bad.
That gap is well known. Speaking to Insurance Business earlier this year about the reputational fallout from employee conduct, HCR Wright Hassall's Celia Mokhtari said traditional employers' liability and PI policies generally do not respond to pure reputational loss.
Standalone reputational risk products do exist. Beazley's reputational risk policy pays for lost profit and gives quick access to crisis consultants, and WTW and Liberty Specialty Markets have built a similar offering. Both, however, were aimed first at consumer-facing sectors such as hospitality, retail and manufacturing rather than a barrister's chambers.
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Strip away the comedy and this is a familiar story: a routine process failed, unchecked content went live, and a brand built on trust was in crisis by lunchtime. Any client that publishes reviews, testimonials or rankings, from comparison sites to trade directories, carries the same exposure.
For brokers, that makes it a useful conversation starter. Who signs off content before it goes live? What happens when an upload goes wrong? And does the client's media or PI wording actually cover breach of confidence as well as defamation? As our look at how digital formats are reshaping media insurance found, the risks of publishing have not changed much, but the speed at which they spread certainly has.
As for a policy that specifically covers being publicly accused of fancying fish, the market has not got there yet. Give Lloyd's time.
