The former managing partner of Harbottle & Lewis has been called before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for allegedly seeking to cover up evidence of phone hacking for a client. Reports suggest he will argue that a secretary's error is to blame.
Lawrence Abramson, who left Harbottle & Lewis in 2010 and is now a consultant at Keystone Law, was instructed by News International to examine emails at the paper in 2007 after its royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, was convicted of phone hacking. The media firm was tasked with sifting through News of the World emails to see if other staff at the paper were involved in the sleazy practice. Abramson concluded that there was no proof they were, but in 2011 it emerged that a number of emails he had been sent did contain evidence of wrongdoing. Former editor Andy Coulson was subsequently convicted.
Abramson is due to appear before the SDT in October where, reports suggest, his defence will be that a temporary secretary gave the critical emails the wrong subject heading. And that as a result Abramson, who was apparently out of the office and going on holiday the next day, deleted them without reading them.
The SRA confirmed that a case has been brought against Abramson and former NI in-house lawyer Jon Chapman, but would not confirm the nature of the allegations against the men "in view of other proceedings". The SRA would not elaborate on what those other proceedings are, for reasons on which they also would not elaborate (for further reasons on which they were not prepared to elaborate, for obvious reasons which require no elaboration obviously).
Harbottle & Lewis and Keystone Law failed to comment and RoF's private investigator was unable to learn anything further from hacking their phones, though he did accidentally record a new answerphone greeting and delete his own message that he left earlier asking for a comment.
Tip Off ROF
Lawrence Abramson, who left Harbottle & Lewis in 2010 and is now a consultant at Keystone Law, was instructed by News International to examine emails at the paper in 2007 after its royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, was convicted of phone hacking. The media firm was tasked with sifting through News of the World emails to see if other staff at the paper were involved in the sleazy practice. Abramson concluded that there was no proof they were, but in 2011 it emerged that a number of emails he had been sent did contain evidence of wrongdoing. Former editor Andy Coulson was subsequently convicted.
Abramson is due to appear before the SDT in October where, reports suggest, his defence will be that a temporary secretary gave the critical emails the wrong subject heading. And that as a result Abramson, who was apparently out of the office and going on holiday the next day, deleted them without reading them.
 |
How it might have looked, as completely made up by RollOnFriday |
The SRA confirmed that a case has been brought against Abramson and former NI in-house lawyer Jon Chapman, but would not confirm the nature of the allegations against the men "in view of other proceedings". The SRA would not elaborate on what those other proceedings are, for reasons on which they also would not elaborate (for further reasons on which they were not prepared to elaborate, for obvious reasons which require no elaboration obviously).
Harbottle & Lewis and Keystone Law failed to comment and RoF's private investigator was unable to learn anything further from hacking their phones, though he did accidentally record a new answerphone greeting and delete his own message that he left earlier asking for a comment.