Linden: Barrister’s self-referral insufficent
The High Court has referred a barrister and his chambers to the Bar Standards Board (BSB) over their involvement in litigation run by a legal consultant it employs.
Mr Justice Linden also referred that consultant, Amar Lodhia, to the Attorney General for possible contempt of court proceedings after finding he fabricated or doctored documents and “submitted witness statements containing false evidence”.
He works at JSC Chambers, which says it is a chambers for “direct access and professional clients”. Its website call Mr Lodhia a “supervised legal consultant within the chambers working directly with the head of chambers”, Joseph Chiffers.
It says: “Amar is a keen advocate, holding full rights of audience in tribunals and the county court, with supervised advocacy rights in the higher courts.”
He described himself in his particulars of claim as “a respected legal consultant, social entrepreneur, and public interest advocate, widely known for his work on housing rights, legal reform, and community empowerment”.
He told the court that he was insured to provide legal consultancy services and has obtained multiple six-figure settlements in “pre-action litigation”.
Mr Lodhia said he was studying a post-graduate law course and that in June he was admitted as a member of the Inner Temple.
Linden J noted: “It is also apparent from the evidence that, apart from providing legal services in his role at JSC Chambers, he has conducted a number of cases as a party, has been involved in litigating on behalf of others and has appeared as an advocate in that context.”
In 2022, Mrs Justice Collins Rice imposed a two-year general civil restraint order on him for persistently making claims or applications which were totally without merit, while he was also subject to a bankruptcy order made in June 2024.
Mr Lodhia is chair and “appointed legal representative” of a residents’ association in East London challenging the reasonableness of service charges at the estate.
The underlying proceedings were a claim for defamation and malicious falsehood made in May 2025 against various defendants involving in managing the estate for comments in a newsletter that criticised Mr Lodhia’s litigation and other activities.
There were multiple applications and postponed hearings – including one in April because Mr Lodhia said it clashed with his University of Law oral assessments, which it later emerged there was not – before he issued a notice of discontinuance.
In May, Linden J ordered him to pay the costs of the proceedings and made directions about various other issues, including concerns about his truthfulness during the proceedings, for a hearing earlier this month.
The Court of Appeal rejected applications by Mr Lodhia and Mr Chiffers for permission to appeal the orders.
In his ruling last week, the judge said he was referring Mr Lodhia to the Attorney General on five grounds, including that in one postponement application, “Mr Lodhia relied on fabricated or doctored documents and submitted witness statements containing false evidence to support his application.
“He then doctored an order of the court… and he subsequently gave false evidence to the court, in witness statements verified with statements of truth, seeking to explain his actions”.
He also “fabricated various letters of claim and submitted false N215 certificates of service of those letters in order to support an argument that the defendants should pay the costs of an application made by them and/or the proceedings and/or he should not be ordered to pay costs.
“Again, he has since provided false explanations of his actions in witness statements verified by statements of truth.”
Another ground was that Mr Lodia’s declaration, in an N260 statement of costs, that he was liable to pay £82,800 in costs, including £10,000 plus VAT to Mr Chiffers, was untrue.
“These were costs which he was seeking to recover from the defendants on a false basis. He also lied to the court at the hearing on 6 May when he said that he had paid Mr Chiffers’ fees, and he has since provided explanations, in witness statements verified with statements of truth, which are false”.
He submitted other statements of costs in the course of the proceedings “which appear to make false claims”.
Further, the judge made a general civil restraint order against Mr Lodhia for a period of three years.
The role of JSC Chambers and Mr Chiffers came under scrutiny too. Mr Chiffers’ evidence “emphasises that Mr Lodhia performs basic tasks under supervision but I have to say that the evidence in this case indicates that he does more than this”.
Linden J continued: “I also have considerable doubts that he is properly supervised if he is supervised at all. Mr Chiffers’ evidence about whether there are clear systems and rules in place governing Mr Lodhia’s litigation activities is unimpressive.”
Anthony Jones, counsel for Mr Chiffers, told the court that Mr Lodhia was conducting his own case in this instance and so Mr Chiffers was not supervising him in the way that he would were Mr Lodhia carrying out JSC client work.
Mr Chiffers was also involved in the case on a direct access basis to perform particular tasks, rather than conducting the proceedings on Mr Lodhia’s behalf, Mr Jones went on.
However, Mr Lodhia frequently used JSC headed paper and said the chambers was acting for him.
Linden J said: “Mr Jones did not disagree with my characterisation of his case as being that Mr Lodhia had ‘gone rogue’.
“And to a large extent Mr Lodhia appeared to be saying that he did indeed act without Mr Chiffers’ knowledge or authority, albeit he did so in good faith and as a result of inexperience and/or AI doing things which he had not instructed it to do.”
The judge decided to refer Mr Chiffers and JSC Chambers to the BSB. “It will be a matter for the BSB to consider how widely they wish to investigate practices at JSC Chambers but, at the very least, they should investigate what happened in this case in terms of Mr Chiffers’ knowledge of Mr Lodhia’s activities and whether there was a failure of supervision or any other regulatory breach.
“It will be for them to consider whether they accept Mr Chiffers’ and Mr Lodhia’s evidence in this regard.”
If the barrister was right that Mr Lodhia had acted without authorisation, “that is a concern in itself given what happened in this case. But there remains a very real issue as to what exactly Mr Chiffers’ role in this case was and, in my view, this needs to be considered as part of the BSB investigation”.
Until his fifth witness statement, “Mr Chiffers’ evidence was strikingly vague as to what work he had actually done on this case and even now it retains a certain vagueness”, the judge added.
But Mr Chiffers accepted there were “clear regulatory breaches”, namely that he was acting on a direct access basis without any written agreement. “Nor, it appears, did he keep the case record required by Rule C128 or comply with C129 [retention of documents].”
Mr Chiffers had self-referred to the BSB but the judge said he did not consider that it “adequately reflects the seriousness of what has happened in this case”.
Linden J was also highly critical of Mr Lodhia for his approach to the defendants’ solicitors, rradar, including complaints to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which were eventually withdrawn.
He said Mr Lodhia had a strategy of “playing the woman not the ball” and made “a number of baseless allegations of professional misconduct and threats (on JSC Chambers headed notepaper)”.
We have approached Mr Chiffers and Mr Lodhia for comment.
Leave a Comment