RATE YOUR SOLICITOR/CROOKED LAWYERS

I suppose the idea for the site rateyoursolcitor.com, where people could award a solicitor with stars for good work and less stars for what they considered not so good work thereby allowing potential clients to view the rating of a solicitor prior to engaging him or her, was a reasonable idea.

In theory that would have been fine. However, the site, rate your solicitor, has now sunk into one of the most disgusting places on the net simply because it is run in a totally unprofessional manner where posters are allowed to post the most gratuitous, nasty, and personal comments about anyone in the legal profession. Perhaps they should consider changing the site name to slateyoursolicitor.com?

A selection of comments and inuendo about members of the legal profession allowed on that site, which comments and inuendo have absolutely nothing to do with the persons ability as a lawyer:

"... is a serial criminal full stoip (sic), and my family has the scars to prove it...pure venim!

"and car park activities after company nights"

"what a wagon"
"...isn't it a pity that all solicitors have skeletons in their cupboards..."
"... stay out of those 5 * hotels for your liaisons!!"
"spends most of his days drinking and chasing women in local lap dancing club"
"He drives around town in a large Mercedes looking like lord muck of the manor, at the same time shafting and sticking the two fingers up to the ordinary law abiding citizen."

"SUBSTANTIAL REWARD FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS. IF ANYONE HAS INFORMATION OF ANY WRONG DOINGS ON THE PART OF THIS FIRM OR INDEED ANY SOLICITOR, PLEASE MAKE YOURSELF KNOWN IN CONFIDENCE TO JOHN GILL"

"after consuming two (sic) many of those cheap bottles off booze he buys in lidl."

"Avoid like the plague, also noted for getting up womens' skirts!"


"... out to S*** in your lawn or plant guns"
"A joke, an idiot, unprofessional, cycles to court and shows up looking like a cross between a cabbage and Worzel Gummidge"
"I am waiting darling, game on, bring it on....hell ain't half full yet ..."

"... would gladly handle a few months in the slammer for what you might do to him, that is!"

"... this alcoholic, egotistical, psychotic and frankly criminalised joke of a solicitor ..."
And some absolutely appalling comments from their sister site, crookedlawyers.com's guest book:
"In India throwing Acid in someone (sic) face is perfectly acceptable means of figting (sic) crime. Ireland needs a similar method." This appeared on their guestbook on the 10th September 2006 and is still there as at the 12th of November 2008.
"... the best way to get my point across is to kidnapp (sic) and torture crooked Solicitors. I find that to be the best method to deal with these Rats." This appeared on their guestbook on the 7th of September 2006 and is still there as at the 12th of November 2008.
"In America if a Solicitor/Lawyer stole from a client he or she would be hunted down and killed and then the client would then commit suicide." This appeared on their guestbook on the 10th of July 2006 and is still there as at the 12th of November 2008.
And as one poster rightly posted after reading some of the vile comments:
"After reading some of the comments I would believe that being a Solicitor in Ireland now is one of the most dangerous professions."
These sites allow anyone to add comments without any check being made on the poster. They allow people to lie freely and anonymously, for instance on our listing rateyoursolicitor.com (we're the only solicitors office in Donegal who have made their ridiculous 'Hall of Shame' due entirely to false postings by John Gill in various guises I suspect (more of which anon), the names added to the derogatory postings are unknown to us. They are not, and never have been, clients of our office.
I also know for an absolute fact that one person in particular tried on seven consecutive nights to post a non derogatory comment pointing out the inadequacies of their site along the lines of how they are demeaning ligitimate cases of complaint by their infantile bashing postings. This comment was never allowed to appear on their site.
Apart from them being nasty people, they are now listing The Irish Time, The Irish Independent, and the Tanaiste, Mary Coughlan. Since when did any of those supply legal advice? Perhaps they should consider opening sites: rateyournewspaper.com and rateyourtanaiste.com?
All in all, I think the rateyoursolicitor.com and crookedlawyer.com sites are a waste of webspace for all the above reasons. Who on earth could condone a posting avocading the throwing of acid in another human being's face? Which they have done by allowing such a posting at all. It is a pity that the people who run them have allowed it to sink into the cess pits they have become because I'm sure there are people with genuine complaints who had hoped it was a way to air concerns, and these people I'm sure, would not want to be part of the band of nasty people who run/post there.