Marketing & PR

A YouTube video of an angry man slicing household goods and a car in half in response to separating from his wife – which has been viewed more than six million times and been covered by media outlets across the world as he sought to sell his share on eBay – has been revealed as a stunt by lawyers.

Consumers are being misled by dubious practices in online reviews and endorsements, while more than half of buyers of services are swayed by them, according to an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority.

A solicitor has launched an app which he hopes will be the equivalent of taxi service Uber for legal and accountancy advice by allowing consumers to find, connect with and later review their advisers.

The young entrepreneur behind RateMyBarrister.com has expanded the site to include solicitors. William Rees, a barrister based in Cardiff, accepted that this would mean finding a new domain name.

A lawyer comparison website aimed at SMEs is poised to begin an “aggressive growth” campaign to win market share, after securing substantial investment 18 months after it launched.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has warned law firms against misleading publicity as the government’s ban on the use of inducements by personal injury solicitors came into force yesterday.

The Law Society has extended its consumer campaign promoting solicitors until the end of October this year, after an increase in traffic to the society’s ‘Find a Solicitor’ website of 18.5% in only four months.

The Advertising Standards Authority has rejected a complaint against a west country personal injury law firm, saying that consumers now have “a general awareness that to have a valid claim there would have to be some degree of fault or negligence by a third party”.

The way law firms handle telephone enquiries from prospective clients is so bad that “it’s as if every managing partner in the land met up at a secret location and agreed the worst way possible to deal with them”, a leading consultant has claimed.

An American lawyer has successfully sued over an online review posted by a British man, winning £50,000 damages at the High Court. Timothy Bussey, a criminal law attorney based in Colorado, found himself the target of a review attached to his firm’s Google Maps profile.