Butler: More protection is needed
A solicitor who suffered a shocking late-night attack on her property is warning colleagues across the legal sector not to put their home address on Companies House.
Alisha Butler, a director at Phoenix Legal in Birkenhead, revealed how her home and two cars were vandalised at 1.42am on 23 March.
Black paint was strewn across the front of her family home in Newton.
The attacker also threw some form of paint or varnish remover over two cars in the driveway, damaging the paintwork on both.
Following the attack, Ms Butler warned fellow legal professionals of the dangers of making their personal details public via Companies House – where she is listed as Phoenix Legal’s only director – fearing that the attacker was a defendant from a court case back in 2024.
Doorbell footage captured the attack and a series of tell-tale signs.
Writing on LinkedIn, Ms Butler said: “The person looks to be older (like the defendant) and their breathing is laboured and wheezy (like the defendant) so not in great health physically or mentally (like the defendant).”
Before the attack, the defendant had sent her written threats at her home address.
“Lesson to everyone – do not put your home address on Companies House when you start a business,” she wrote.
Looking back on the case, Mrs Butler said: “His stubbornness cost him a significant amount in the end.
“His YouTube channel has a video from a year ago, talking about a corrupt judiciary and how we brought a claim against him for £1,500 that ended up costing him £30k, because he wouldn’t pay the debt, kept appealing, tried to dissipate his assets and ended up with a high court injunction to stop him and keep the charge on his property.”
The police are now involved and have gone house to house to collect any more CCTV footage.
The post on LinkedIn attracted nearly 200 comments from lawyers across the UK, all offering sympathy and many agreeing that about the danger of listing a home address on Companies House.
Ms Butler told Legal Futures that this was not the only time she has had problems of this nature. A few years ago, a ‘friend’ of a client who she refused to act for stalked and harassed her.
“They made a fake Twitter account in my name and started posting vile contact on there and sending me the links to it.”
Reporting it had no effect and Ms Butler tracked down the culprit after carrying out her own investigation.
“After weeks of insisting the police do something, they eventually went out to speak to the person, who removed the Twitter account and apologised,” she recounted.
The solicitor went on: “We should not, in our profession, have to carry out our own investigations and insist on action. We are acting in a professional capacity to help the public and more needs to be done to protect us from harm and take threats seriously.”
Law Society research last year found that the level of threats, intimidation and even physical violence faced by solicitors has “significantly increased” and extends across a wide range of practice areas.
Last month, we reported how Ms Butler was helping former clients of PM Law and calling on others to take on cases – and for defendant solicitors not to take advantage of the situation.
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