I've been posting on ATS for a while now for a few reasons. I really enjoy the lively debate. There are some extremely insightful contributors and
because I spend a LOT of time at home beside my pc. It's not that I particularly enjoy doing that - it's just that me - and my family - have been
living with the results of a conspiracy for 16 years now.. If I could take a moment to set the scene.
I'm from Scotland. I once heard Scotland described as a dark & evil land by the head of some American bank &, with apologies to all Scottish
nationalists about this, but I tend to agree with him based on my direct experience.
I'm what's known as a 'McKenzie Friend' i.e. a lay assistant for my father who is a party litigant and defender in a litigation raised against us his
former solicitors (who are one of the legal firms in the UK not just Scotland). These solicitors raised their action against my dad for alleged
unpaid fees in 1996 (2 years after they'd stopped acting for us (making it one of the longest running litigations in Scotland's legal history) in the
Court of Session in Edinburgh (which is the highest court in Scotland).
They claimed my dad's company owed them money even tho' they'd been paid tens of thousands of pounds more than they'd invoiced us. In fact they sued
him for a total of £244k plus costs.
Let's be clear - they'd stopped working for us in '93/'94 - and we had lodged complaints about their handling of our affairs with the Law Society.
Glad to see the back of them - we left the Law Society to deal with our complaints and moved on with our lives. When these solicitors first raised
their action against us I spent 6 months pacing round our office saying 'they can't do that!'
For the first five years of the dispute we employed six different legal firms, two senior and two junior advocates to protect our interests. Two of
those advocates are now what we call Lord Ordinary's (high ranking judges). None of them did their job even tho', in 2004, after 8 years of
litigation our former solicitors admitted that they had sued us for the sums they did 'in error'. Matters didn't stop there tho'. Despite their
admission they continued to seek £244k plus costs for a further 4 years.
We had an honest judge on this case at one point who severely criticised our opponents in an opinion he issued in 2006. Our former solicitors
appealed his opinion to what we call the Inner House' in 2007 and won the right to take their accounts back to the court auditor and ask for an uplift
in their fee rate, The court auditor duly obliged - and awarded a 100% increase in fee on one of the solicitor's accounts and allowed the 60% uplift
the other solicitor had been awarded to stand.
A 100% uplift in fee? 20 years after they'd rendered invoices and been paid in full? Well, after they got their uplifts they amended the sums sued
for - only with these uplifts can they claim that we owe them anything. Now they say they want £87k.
After they had their uplifts applied and amended - that's when I got ALL their files. We'd been asking for them for 12 long years. When I opened and
read one of the partner's first file - I wept. Therein was the reason that we had been in Scotland's courts for 16 years.
Without going into the detail - he basically conned my dad - when acting as his solicitor into a protracted, expensive and, as we now know,
unnecessary litigation with the accountancy firm who had worked for my dad since 1966.(when he founded his first company - my dad left school at 15
yrs of age and is an electrician to trade). We always thought we were the defenders against our accountants - it transpires - we were in fact the
pursuers. I think it's fee-mongering on our solicitor's part. Sorry I
know it's called fee-mongering. Well you know what it's like when you
tell one lie - you have to keep telling more and more - and you just keep digging yourself deeper into a hole.
When we made those complaints to the Law Society circa 1994/95 - the Law Society did, in fact, take them seriously. they appointed a 'Reporter' to
investigate our complaints - I now have the Law Soc. file on the one solicitor I hold responsible for the past 16 years. And in that file there is a
letter to the solicitor telling him that the Reporter wanted to see his files....not long after the wee man raised the current 16 year legal action
against us. At which point the Law Society wrote and informed us that they could no longer continue with their investigations because of ratfinks
fraudulent legal action as matters were now
'sub judice'. They told me to feel free to bring back any matters that weren't dealt with by the
court.
That was 16 years ago..
I took the complaints back to them in 2010 when the current judge struck all of our averments relating to the solicitors' misconduct from the Record -
the Law Soc. and its new 'gateway organisation', the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission' have now had the gall to tell me that my complaints are
time-barred.
So a fraudulent action was raised against us to avert a Law Society investigation and, with the court, the SLCC, and Law Society's assistance (I
call it aiding and abetting) their tactic has been a massive success.
I am 'coming out' if you will. Over all these years we have tried to show the Court the respect that such an establishment ought to be due - but
our courts aren't worth the respect. Plus - they're relying on what they're letting these guys get away with happening behind closed doors with
no-one paying any attention.
We are currently appealing an atrocious opinion against us - that doesn't deal in law - the judge concerned has simply decided he
is the law.
He's not been on the bench for that long & is in fact a former colleague of our opponents. That's one of the biggest downsides of living in a country
with a comparatively small pop. The 'old boy' network is extremely tight - when we go into that court room we're the only people who are NOT 'in the
club'. It doesn't matter we were sued for all that money 'in error', or that they never gave us invoices, or even letters of demand before suing us.
From their files - their conduct was sooo bad - it should always have been us suing them.
The judge is using a legal tactic - referring only to his own opinion as if that is the only law of the land. He's in it up to his neck with our
opponents. The man wrote a book for law students published 2 years ago - he's been on the bench only since 2008 - and in his own book he quotes
himself and his own novice opinions. Ego ego running rampant.
Our appeal is before the Inner House - that is - the highest ranking court in Scotland. In order to deprive these guys the privacy they so rely on to
get away with their shenanigans - I have taken it upon myself to create a website on which I am currently uploading as much of the relevant court
documentation as possible. Our case has been referred to as 'death by paper'....I couldn't come close to uploading all of it - and certainly don't
have the time before the appeal is heard in July.
Any document lodged with the court becomes a public document. It is my intention to upload all documents lodged (by both sides) in the current appeal
as matters develop.
My sites still under construction
todsmurrayvarakin.com Any & all advice would be greatly
appreciated.
Phew! That was cathartic.
edit on 13-5-2012 by christina-66 because: (no reason given)
edit on 13-5-2012 by christina-66
because: (no reason given)