Graham Leigh Pfeffer (GLP) Solicitors

Solicitors from Hell's mission is to let people who have a grievance against their solicitor to fight back by publicising their complaint.

This is freedom of speech pure and simple.

So, obviously, the solicitors are trying to close it down. I hope they fail and I have donated a little towards the cause.

Have a look at their website, it's good.

Just in case it does get taken down I am retelling my story here.

I used GLP & Co for an unfair dismissal case. I was very unhappy with their performance and wrote this letter of complaint (redacted).

"The GLP website claims, “GLP are confident that in a competitive market we can offer the very best of quality and service. We set our standards to the highest level and strive to offer added value to all our clients”, but my recent experience is that GLP fall far short of this.

In my claim for unfair dismissal against xxxxxx I was misled and my clear instructions were not followed.

I was fully prepared to appear before the Employment Tribunal to put my case and I made it clear several times that I was more interested in winning the case than any financial reward.

Yet it appears that GLP never intended to go to the tribunal and was always planning to settle out of court.

There is much evidence to support this view. In particular, GLP made little attempt to collect the information needed to support my case.

Despite having several months to prepare my statement, GLP only sent the first draft of this to me for checking a few days before the date set for the hearing - I sent my corrections on Monday 6 October when the hearing was set for that Wednesday.

No attempt was apparently made to contact the witnesses that I proposed in my email of 19 August.

No attempt was apparently made to get disclosure of the documents mentioned in that same email and in various telephone conversations.

As the date for the tribunal drew closer I asked, more than once, for confirmation of the location and time of the hearing (such as my email of 6 October) but got no reply.

The only conclusions that I can derive from this evidence is that either GLP had no intention of appearing before the tribunal or were doing a very poor job in preparing for it.

I was called by GLP the day before the planned hearing and was strongly encouraged to settle out of court. While this was not my wish it was clear to me that I could not proceed without the full support of my solicitor and that I did not have this. I was then told of weaknesses in my case which would not have existed if GLP had asked for disclosure of the documents that I suggested or had got statements from the witnesses that I suggested.

There then followed a series of conversations on the amount of compensation that I would be prepared to accept and we finally agreed on the amount of £xxxx payable to myself.

We discussed this in detail and there can be no doubt that my instructions were clear.

We discussed GLP’s VAT and fees etc. and we agreed that we would settle for £xxxx for myself; I was not interested in the total amount of the settlement. Against my clear instruction, GLP settled for just under £xxxx payable to myself.

To add insult to injury, GLP then claimed that the cheque would take ten days to clear when the clearing cycle is three days. And I have not received any breakdown of GLP’s fees and costs.

Following the settlement, I wrote to GLP asking for the return of the original documents that I had sent earlier. This has not been done.

In summary, GLP has consistently failed to follow my clear instructions in this case and, as a result, I have not had the settlement that I agreed to and my documents have not been returned."

Needless to say this complaint got no reply either.