'We're here for a meeting.'
At 8pm on a Bank Holiday Sunday, the following was sent to my incomparable colleague Jamie by a group of gibbons in dunce hats called SEC Newgate.
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From: Alistair Kellie
Date: 7 May 2023 at 20:05:38 BST
To: Jamie Hamilton <[email protected]>
Subject: Jennette Newman
Evening Jamie,
Jennette Newman has been in touch with me over the weekend regarding your latest article on Ince. She’s understandably very upset by your reference to her being sadomasochistic - paragraph below.
Jennette Newman, Managing Partner of Ince Gordon Dadds and now Ince & Co, said that “Since joining the firm in December 2021, I have enjoyed enormously working with our teams and clients”, which, given the almost unbelievable parade of catastrophes the firm has stumbled through during that time and culminating in its implosion, suggests a serious sadomasochistic streak.
It’s not yet a criminal offence under the new online safety bill but is likely to be libellous and potentially discriminatory as a sex related comment.
We ask that you remove this reference immediately; that you apologise to Jennette and that you make a donation to a mental health charity.
Please confirm receipt and action asap.
Many thanks.
Alistair
Alistair Kellie | Co Head, Communications
Communications Agency of the Year – UK Business Green Awards 2023 (shortlisted)
PR Agency of the Year – Headlinemoney Awards 2023 (shortlisted)
Best Social Media Campaign, Best Use of a Communication Tool and Best Use of Video - PRCA Digital Awards 2023 (shortlisted)
Best Banking Communications Campaign - PRCA City & Financial Awards 2023 (shortlisted)
Best Integrated Agency for Corporate and Public Affairs – PR Week CCPA 2023 (shortlisted)
Best Handling of an IPO – PR Week CCPA Awards 2022
Best IPO Campaign – PRCA City & Financial Awards 2021/2022
Best CSR Content - Corporate Content Awards 2022
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I had not heard of this agency. Presumably this lacuna is entirely on me given the massive number of (almost) awards that are listed in the footnote. I mean, SHORTLISTED for Best use of a communication tool and best use of video by PRCA Digital awards? How could this have escaped my attention? Do you think the sender also has his bicycle proficiency award and 50m swim badge?
Presumably he does not count any legal qualifications on his CV. If he did, he would know that there was nothing remotely defamatory or discriminatory about the comment. Jamie was simply joking that someone who professes to have enjoyed working at a law firm that was spectacularly collapsing must have an unusual relationship with pain. To borrow from passing off, even the proverbial moron in a hurry would not consider that Jamie had bumped into Jennette walking out of Torture Garden with a glint in her eye. The suggestion of misogyny and implication of criminality is beyond grubby.
So clearly we will not be taking down the article. Nor will Jamie, in the manner of a repentant mediaeval monarch, prostrate himself, issue a mea culpa and give alms to the infirm. Nice try though.
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So Ince are wrong when they say “It is likely to be libellous”?
Time to report them to the SRA in that case.
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Lovely work Matthew. Call it out!
What massive bellends. Seriously, they didn’t even pick up the phone and ask nicely first?
Bad boy, Jamie! Bad! Go and sit on the naughty step and contemplate your behaviour. Heh!
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that Ince would wish to call attention to your piece, in such a spectacularly dumb way, surely, of itself, qualifies as sadomasochistic....
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Anon @13:19. Even if the PR firm's message fell foul of the SRA rules of guidance (most pertinent probably being this: https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/guidance/slapps-warning-notice/), it wasn't sent by Ince, or indeed a law firm at all, so the SRA are unlikely to be interested
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Good grief. Seriously, my eight-year-old daughter could have done a better job than this. How much do you think Ince are paying them?!?!
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I love all the "shortlisted" qualifications in the email footer! They basically say "we have not won a single award in 2023"
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Matthew, thank you for having the balls to point this out.
I work at a large firm and I am heartily sick of partners kicking anything deemed sensitive or complex to an agency. They never have a clue, they hack off the publishers, they charge an absolute fortune.
Give me the budget instead to employ a couple of extra in-house staff! (If I could find them, they are scarcer than hen’s teeth right now).
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Surely they should win Finance Monthly’s Legal PR agency of the year award?
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Absurd that they are spending money on a shortlisted PR agency when they owe everyone so much money.
Strange too, as according to previous statements made internally at Ince, Donnie and Jeanette don’t read your pages as they are far too busy working on very positive things together to spend time reading tittle tattle. So why send the PR agency out to try to silence you?
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Jennette and Donnie sitting in a tree…..single-handedly re-sinking the ship.
Let’s see what Axiom Ince née Axiom DWFM do now.
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@16:08 they took on the PR co last year and then administration. Says it all. LOL
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Ince management currently living it up in Dubai. Trying to convince partners to stay?!
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A very witty response.
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Please stop mocking Ince and Axiom. They have both appeared in today's edition and that is exceptional. The Darling Buds of May are back from Dubai and have seemingly reassured each and every partner therethat Ince is now part of Harrods and not a Pound Shop.
London partners should not fear home visits from HM Inland Revenue. The new owners will pay their tax. Investec will be repaid.The partners who have resigned since 5 May will be replaced by those queuing to join.
The only person who is surplus to requirements is the CEO and he is honourable so expect him to do the right thing and soon.
The future is bright, the future is orange!
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Perhaps Ince management could stop wasting more time and money with this so called agency and have the decency to reply to ex partners asking what happened to their capital and unpaid distributions … or maybe we should all hang around the next Torture Garden event?
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PR teams should this as an example of the Streisand effect
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Be a sport, Jamie, and grovel for your betters.
When I bumped into Jeannette at the Hellfire club she was thoroughly broken up about it. Wouldn't even take a spin on the Catherine Wheel to cheer herself up.
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Jamie, if you ever want to know more about sadomasocism then feel free to walk me on my lead in my leathers...
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I am surprised that no reference was made to previous letters of this sort: "We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram."
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RE: Past partner being ignored … 13 May 23 00:26
You are so right. Ince "leadership" only seem to care about how they appear... likely because they have no idea how to actually run a company other than how to pocket as much equity as possible before hanging a new shingle somewhere else. Ince owes HMRC unpaid employee tax, not to mention all the former partners they left with huge tax bills and unpaid distributions. Even more so, they haven't paid rent in years and can't even pay their corporate phone bill. (They went so far as to buy the entire firm new iPhones two days before they declared insolvency... this brazen disregard for even **pretending** the insolvency isn't a complete stitch-up is shocking. WHERE ARE THE SRA AND OTHER WATCHDOGS?? Jeanette may not be a masochist, but she and Donnie sure have managed to stiff everyone around them.
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Does Stann Marine make more profit than Ince? What about Heuvels Law Firm?
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SEC Newgate is headed by Emma Kane, who is in turn married to Ian Rosenblatt.
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I note that Alistair Kettle is co-head of communications. I guess in this case, two heads are not better than one
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Can we have a timeline of Ince's demise, and discussion around where it went wrong, because they've been going under for around the same time I've been a solicitor (10 PQE). Wonder if any law schools out there will consider doing a case study on Ince on 'how not to manage a law firm'.
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Is that what qualifies for a LBA these days? Has more of a 'alright mate, do us a favour' tone by my reckoning.
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Judging by the number of down-votes on what are perfectly valid responses, I am thinking SEC Newgate's PR bots are in over-drive.
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So much easier to make snide and barbarous comments from the sidelines as a journalist than do a real job and grow a backbone. Truth to power it isn’t. Journalistic ad hominem garbage it is.
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barbarous comments
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