DLA Piper has sought to justify the behaviour of some of its partners who were caught referring to an ex-client as a "nutter". The news comes after emails were leaked last year in which a DLA partner referred to women as "gash".

DLA had previously acted for Steve Wilkinson, a Sheffield-based entrepreneur who specialises in restoring spas. However it ended up on the other side to him in 2002 when it was instructed by RBS to wind up one of Wilkinson's businesses. After DLA and RBS succeeded in obtaining a bankruptcy order against him seven years later, Wilkinson managed to obtain a cache of emails from the firm in which he discovered that its partners had insulted him.

In one email, partner Duncan Mosley told partner Stephen Sly, "I've mentioned this nutter before". Sly subsequently referred to Wilkinson as having a "twisted mind". And on the day Wilkinson was made bankrupt, former partner Roger McCourt wrote "Good news - the wicked witch is dead!". Mosley replied that the news had made his day and joked that he would go for “a spa treatment at [Wilkinson's] Turkish bath suite and see if they stock any champagne”.

Wilkinson subsequently reported the firm to the SRA for conspiring against him to cause his bankruptcy. He also provided RollOnFriday with over 30 of the emails he has sent to DLA Piper. In them he refers to the firm as "DLA Shyster" and uses capital letters and bold type in a variety of sizes and colours to make his points more clearly. He signs some of the emails "TOM", after Tom Cruise, and one consists entirely of quotes from A Few Good Men.

Wilkinson v DLA Piper. As seen by Wilkinson.

A DLA spokesman said its partners' comments, "do not reflect the standards or values of the firm or the individuals that made them". But he also said they were made “about an individual who, over a period of seven years, heavily contested court proceedings involving our client, but ultimately failed," and that, "during this time he also made many disparaging and abusive statements about our personnel".