A law firm which announced with great fanfare that one of its solicitors had won an award has deleted all evidence of the victory after questions were raised about the accolade's legitimacy.

Last week Scottish firm Shepherd & Wedderburn announced on its website that Leigh Herd had been crowned "Business Premises Solicitor of the Year" by a publication called Finance Monthly. The firm celebrated her achievement in a post on its website titled "Prestigious award for Shepherd and Wedderburn Solicitor".

A similar report appeared on ScottishLegal.com describing how Herd had won a "prestigious accolade at the Finance Monthly Global Awards 2017". She is quoted as saying, “It’s such an honour to be singled out for this award by clients and professional peers in the sector. I would like to express my gratitude to those who nominated me for this prestigious award, to the judges who chose me from such an impressive list of finalists, and to my colleagues at Shepherd and Wedderburn for all their support”.

    "You love me. You really love me!" 

However, when contacted about the prestigious award, the firm blocked public access to its article.

Like the joke awards recently exposed by RollOnFriday, in return for a prize, winners are encouraged to purchase a profile page in the awards magazine and a trophy. Shepherd & Wedderburn, along with Clarke Willmott ("Agricultural Law Firm of the Year UK 2017") and Osborne Clarke ("Regulatory Communications Law Firm of the Year UK"), all appeared in the 2017 "Winners' Magazine".

Finance Monthly does not solely rely on professionals coming to it for an ego salve. A solicitor told RollOnFriday, "I am delighted to say that Finance Monthly Global awarded me their 'Consumer and Civil Rights Solicitor of the Year UK' award", informing her via an unsolicited email. "Sadly, not having a handle growing out of my head, I sensed a scam". She said the warning signs included the fact that she did "almost no consumer work and no civil rights work" and "they invited me to pay £249 plus VAT for my trophy".

Finance Monthly is part of a stable of web magazines including Lawyer Monthly, Corporate Travel Awards and CEO Today. Until 2017 they were the property of Parity Media Ltd, which was owned by its two directors, Mark and Andrew Palmer. But, in a worrying sign that not enough lawyers are buying spray-painted cups, Parity Media collapsed into administration in January owing £499,000 to unsecured creditors. None of the money was deemed recoverable. But Finance Monthly endured thanks to a company called Universal Media Ltd, which snapped up Parity Media's assets in a pre-pack deal for £50,000. As it happens, Universal Media is also owned by the Palmers, who run their awards empire from an office in Lichfield. Winning the award for Best Bankruptcy 2017, Parity Media's administration is ongoing due to the identification by the administrator of "some areas that require further investigation". Universal Media did not respond to requests for comment.

A Shepherd & Wedderburn spokesman declined to provide details of Herd's fellow finalists, saying, “Leigh is an outstanding lawyer who consistently receives positive feedback from clients and is highly valued by the firm. Leigh’s experience and the quality of her work is reflected in the high regard in which she is held by her colleagues, peers in the legal profession and clients alike”.
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Comments

Anonymous 10 November 17 07:12

Have a look at the website of “top Scottish law firm “ Gilson Gray. They list dozens of these very awards. Funny that

Anonymous 10 November 17 09:24

I'm totally getting one of these, nobody checks them out, they'll just be more annoying trophies to clutter my junk shelf!

Anonymous 10 November 17 10:19

Please email this story to all partners of all firms once a month forever. You will win the undying loyalty of all law firm marketing folk.

Anonymous 10 November 17 14:14

This sort of thing really grinds my gears. This isn't just a case of not-that-clever marketing, this seems to me to be fundamentally dishonest. If this happens in England & Wales, as it surely does, then it violates two of the Overriding Principles of the SRA Code of Conduct (acting with integrity, and behaving in a manner to maintain public trust).

If an individual or, worse, organisation, is willing to trumpet any old disingenuous tat about their qualifications, awards, etc., it seems to me to be a short leap of the imagination to all the other lies they'd be willing to tell to further their business. I think this shizzle is serious and should be stamped on hard by a higher authority than just ROF.

Am I alone in this? Am I being unnecessarily po-faced? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy these stories in a Nelson Muntz "ha-ha" kind of way but the joy at seeing someone's hubris deflated is tempered a bit by also being really, really angry.

Possibly I'm being a prig. What do you reckon, ROFfers?

Anonymous 11 November 17 09:38

http://www.woodfines.co.uk Have one of these phoney award logos at the bottom of their homepage in 2013 Most approachable Law Firm of the Year award!

Anonymous 11 November 17 10:16

Woodfines uses the logo of one of these scams on its home page. You'd think their marketing department would have rumbled it.

Anonymous 11 November 17 16:13

I get their unsolicited crap all the time. I agree with the above that it needs sorting out - but the SRA and our Dear Leader at Law Soc do nothing to curb these sheister awards that only damage the profession. Can't wait for GDPR

Anonymous 13 November 17 11:41

Last year, I won a Women In Law Award. I was delighted by this, albeit slightly surprised, due to the fact that I am (so far as I and others can tell) quite clearly a bloke. My first thought upon receiving unsolicited the email out of the blue, congratulating me on my award and informing me that I would receive a trophy and full-page spread in their rag in return for only a few hundred quid, was "what a fantastic example of equality, that I, as a poor, downtrodden bloke, get recognised as a leading woman in law". Then, my nose wrinkled, as the ever-increasing stench of bull$hit emanating from the email put a dampener on my sense of unearned accomplishment. Unfortunately, I received no response to my several emails to the sender asking for a photo of my trophy, so that I could properly evaluate which "celebration package" to shell out on. Accordingly, there seems to be a slim chance that this was not a genuine award, and in fact just a money-making scam. I hope one day to win a genuine Women In Law award though, given the dizzying highs caused by the receipt of the initial email.