Don’t believe the hype – nothing has changed at Duncan Lewis. Duncan Lewis employees speak out:

I can confirm the conniving, decietful, immoral and basically downright rubbish management DL has. Once they have wrung the life out of you, they throw you aside like a piece of chewed gum- they know you know it and they dont care. They simply move on to the next “victim”. Once used and they know you have wisened up to the fact, they hope and pray you leave and let you know in many ways.

People are not happy- people want to leave but with the current climate, one needs to keep paying those bills and so one stays. People are hummming with disgruntlement. DL is still run like a factory…charge, charge, charge, bill, bill, bill. No one cares how you do it…. just do it.

Paralegals do not know what they are doing especially in immigration- emphasis is on 6chargeables hours- there is simply no time to read up on the law- paralegals go outdoors to detention centres primarily to achieve the 6chargeable hours so as to consequently bill- whether or not they have properly adviced vulnerable non english speaking clients is besides the point- if they are lucky they will receive some advice via an advice letter – if they ever get one. Emphasis is on biling, billing, billing. Never the law.

Management created a “monstor” of a firm. It wont last long. The bubble will burst- look at what is happening to the mental health department- it will literally be gone by October.

There has been no external training for years to speak off( you are expected to attend in “house training” delivered by persons who have themselves not been to external courses for years. If you want external training you go to the freebie two hour raining sessions conducted at various chambers after 5pm) Its no bad thing that re- accreditation is a must to cover firms such as DL- even solicitors and supervisors themselves do not know the law- its not really like working in a law firm. The LSC needs to come down hard on the firm someday and without notice if you know what i mean.

…. (see full post in the comments to Duncan Lewis employees speak out)

As for the employee forum, charity committee, pro bono cimmittee all created after this site was set up- its no use- the core is still rotten. Before this site you did not have these committies at all. All created ( especially the charity one ) to give an impression that there is change. No serious thinking and intelligent lawyer in DL beleives the HYPE! Its patronising and disgusting to go around asking employees to contirbute money to this and that charity so as to give the impression that all is well and good and the employess are happy to give.. well they are not. Use your own money to mend your damaged reputation. No one reads the newsletter, no one cares what the emolpyee forum does or says- its just a lot of hot air- No one cares that the employee forum has bought biscuits for HR surgeries. Apart from provding basics such as milk(where you can find it these days), tea bags, sugar and coffee nothing further is provided to staff- not even a weekly tin of biscuits for each floor.

People are not happy. Right the wrongs you are currently committing.

Until the wrongs are corrected, contributions to this site will continue….. daily or weekly.

Duncan Lewis employees Speak Out:

Here are two comments recently posted from people who used to work for Duncan Lewis, or as one person said its called on the inside ‘Dunno Law’:

“A few years ago..I was an employee at Duncan Lewis…the main problem is the firm has far too many paralegals who do not know what they are doing. Pretty much anyone whether competent or not can get a job here on a poor salary with more importance given to 6 chargeable hours than quality of service. The paralegals are on the large very hard working but the firm itself is run very poorly. It’s basically a ‘freshy firm’…the outsourced secretaries could barely spell..training is poor. With the exception of a few very competent child care and employment lawyers the knowledge is poor! Having moved on from this firm…you are better advised to seek legal advice from firms such as Fisher Meredith (no I do not work for them). Perhaps test the DL staff on the Housing Law…Matrimonial Causes Act..case law…and be prepared to be shocked by the lack of knowledge! Nina…Siva..Vanket..David n co….TRAIN your staff!”

“Stumbled across this blog. Very interesting. As a former employee of DL (which some of us on the “inside” used to refer to as “Dunno Law”), I would tend to say that there is probably more than a grain of truth in what I have read on this site, and I have certainly witnessed some pretty strange goings-on in the Immigration Department, particularly when LSC audit time drew near.
I was certainly still there when digital dictation, outsourced to India for cost reasons, was introduced. All I can say is that I preferred to do my own typing.
Until relatively recently, recruitment for DL was a near-constantly revolving door. That was partly because staff turnover was quite high, affecting paralegals and qualified solicitors. The undercurrent back then was that, if you were not favoured by the powers-that-be, then your career would simply not progress, e.g. for paralegals, who were generally paid a pittance, you would not get that training contract. For solicitors, you would not get that pay rise (or Directorship). As for Human Resources, the Head of it gained notoriety as someone who knew very little about employment law and employers’ responsibilities in particular.
There is one question that I should ask and that is, of all the cases highlighted in this blog, how many tried to invoke DL’s Complaints Procedure? Dissatisfied clients should really try to go through this first. If nothing results, then I would strongly suggest that matters be taken up with the Legal Complaints Service (run by the Law Society / SRA).
If you are concerned about abuse of publicly-funded legal advice and assistance, then there is nothing stopping you from making your concerns known to the Legal Services Commission. If done in sufficient numbers, then even the monolithic LSC should take notice.
I will certainly keep an eye on this blog; it seems quite entertaining, for all the wrong reasons. Just be careful that you don’t stray into the realms of defamation.”

Duncan Lewis on Trial

On Saturday the 30th of May, disgruntled clients of Duncan Lewis, together with members of the London Coalition Against Poverty and a fair few interested passers-by, gathered outside the Hackney offices of Duncan, Lewis and Co. to tell their stories.

The action took the form of a mock trial, and although a ‘defence lawyer’ made powerful arguments in their favour (“we can’t afford to post your letters”, “we don’t know what we’re doing”), the verdict was a resounding:

Around 30 people were in attendance for this session of the people’s court in Hackney, and the prosecution were able to call on many of them as witnesses to their treatment by Duncan Lewis.

Police presence was light, and those that did appear attempted to hide behind a skip:

Thanks to all who came along and made the day such a success! Keep checking this blog for details of future events.

Duncan Lewis in the media

Duncan Lewis do a good bit of self-promotion. Here’s some links to some of their articles / articles about them:

• They target migrant media
• They outsource their admin work, so that they pay less than half of  a normal salary to secretaries (aren’t you glad they offer representation for employment cases!?)
• They earn millions of legal aid cash – the most out of any law firm in the country for civil cases.

Refusing to take on a simple case

Ms W. went to Duncan Lewis after she received a decision from Hackney Council on her homeless application that she made herself intentionally homeless. Duncan Lewis said they needed to talk to Hackney homeless persons unit. After doing so they told her that they would not help her, and wrote to her saying that they agreed with the Council that she had made herself intentionally homeless.

Ms W. was not able to secure other representation in time and submitted her own review of the decision. Despite not having had any legal training Ms W.’s review was ultimately successful and her housing claim was accepted.

Ms W. says; “I feel that Duncan Lewis & Co give more weight to what the Council tells them then what their clients need. I don’t think that they want to help people, they just want to take the governments money and then do what the Council wants them to do.”

Derogatory treatment

Virginia is a single mother with two young children, whose application as homeless to Hackney council was refused. She went to Duncan Lewis solicitors to review her decision. The advice from Duncan Lewis was given in a judgmental way, for instance that not having childcare is not a good enough reason to have stopped work. When she told her solicitor that she was having trouble understanding what he was saying, he wrote to her saying that he could understand her. The solicitor told her repeatedly and in writing that her review was going to fail, and implied that this was her own fault.

Eventually she returned home to find that the locks had been changed on her room, and for two nights was street homeless with her young children. She was able, through her own efforts to find work and reapplied to the council for housing. The experience of eviction and street homeless was a traumatic and stressful time for Virginia and her children. Virginia felt that Duncan Lewis were also treating her in a bad way, as if she did not deserve to be housed.

Losing a tenancy

John, a man in his seventies lived in a flat for 35 years. He had a Rent Act tenancy. His landlord was not fixing disrepair in his flat and so he sought the advice of a solicitor to try and resolve his problems. The solicitor told him to stop paying his rent as a way to force the landlord to fix the disrepair. This did not work and John accrued rent arrears. John left his first solicitor because there was a problem with securing legal aid.

John then went to Duncan Lewis, and at that time the landlord sought possession of the flat in the county court. However, the landlord offered to negotiate. Before the court hearing John met with his solicitor, barrister and the landlords solicitor. They told him it was better not to go before the court. John was told that the Judge would ask him to pay over £400 a week to clear his arrears, which he would not be able to do on his pension. Before the court hearing he was paying an extra five pounds weekly towards his arrears, and his rent was only £280 a month. The Duncan Lewis & Co solicitor convinced John it would be best to take the landlords offer of £5000 to leave, and he could then apply to the council for housing. John never received any money from his landlord.

John feels that if it wasn’t for the advice of the Duncan Lewis & Co solicitor he could have kept his flat. He has since found out that it was not likely the Judge would force him to pay his arrears with such high repayments. As it is John is now homeless and housed by the council in a hostel which is unsuitable for his needs and where he is suffering stress, both from the unsuitable accommodation and from the experience of homelessness.

Letting refugees down

A refugees’ support organisation says:

Our hearts sink every time we hear that someone is being represented by Duncan Lewis.

The only thing they seem to do well is get people’s cases in the first place. They offer translation and interpretation services so people go there. Sometimes one of the Duncan Lewis solicitors has been okay and has helped. But in the vast majority of cases, once they get the legal aid money they hardly do anything for the people.

Solicitors have to be very precise when they are making an asylum application to the Home Office. It is so difficult to get asylum now that solicitors, if they are going to really help the people, need to spend time with their clients to find out the exact details of the case and make a claim based on specific legal points.

When we are trying to get in touch with them they never answer the phone. So many times our clients have complained about not being able to get through to their solicitor even though they have been trying five times a day. They don’t pick up when we phone them either. In the past Duncan Lewis has changed the solicitor working for a client without even telling them. We have had clients who have given supporting documents that were sent over from their original countries for them to Duncan Lewis, assuming they’d send them to the Home Office to support their asylum claim. Duncan Lewis has forgotten to send them to the Home Office!

And then, when people are put into detention centres before they are deported, Duncan Lewis becomes even harder to contact. It is extremely important that people in detention centres have a good solicitor. They should be making appeals, applying to the High Court and submitting judicial reviews. But what does Duncan Lewis do? Often, their solicitors don’t even answer their phones. As a final insult, when the person gets deported, Duncan Lewis gets the legal aid money.

We should not be in any doubt about the severity of the consequences of this fecklessness. People who were represented by Duncan Lewis and who have been deported are living in hiding, scared for their lives and separated from their families and communities here in the UK.

Even with a good solicitor, it is very difficult for people from countries the Home Office have said are safe (like Iraq, the DRC and Afghanistan!) to get asylum. But having a solicitor like Duncan Lewis makes it so much worse. Their unwillingness to do more than the minimum amount of work to help people makes the lives of refugees and migrants so much harder and more insecure. All those concerned about the human rights must take a stand against them.

Letting detainees down

Immigration Cases submitted by a support worker for detainees:

With two people Duncan Lewis refused to give them their own file and said they had to pay for it. One had just found a new solicitor and the other one had been dropped by Duncan Lewis and needed the file to be able to find a new solicitor or represent himself

One woman, a torture survivor was refused her legal aid on her appeal and Duncan Lewis dumped her case. After she spent five months in detention a new solicitor took her case, got her out of detention, won her refugee status and the home office admitted one year of unlawful detention and she was paid compensation

One man, a torture survivor: Duncan Lewis refused to submit evidence (including a arrest warrant, witness statements) but only referred to them in their representation. When asylum and appeal was refused they did two fresh claims in each just submitting a small part of the new evidence that was available. When MLR was made Duncan Lewis didn’t go through it before submitting it and it turned out that there was small mistake (it said the man had two children when he had three), as a result it was not considered at all and he ended up in detention with removal directions.

Two people were dumped just before their appeal hearing.

Another messed-up case? Read Maria’s story and share yours…

We have heard from many people that Duncan Lewis & Co have let them down.

A good example of this is Maria, who had gone to Duncan Lewis because her homeless application had been refused. Maria did not speak any English, and the Council had mistranslated her application and got all the basic facts wrong in her case. It was not difficult for to prove that these mistakes had been made and Maria told her lawyer at Duncan Lewis what had happened.

However, unknown to her the lawyer never put in any evidence to the Council. After filling in the legal aid funding form which pays their wage, the only work they did was sending a letter, which didn’t give the evidence needed to appeal the negative decision.

After not hearing anything for a while, Maria went to Duncan Lewis to ask what was happening with her case. Someone there told her that her lawyer had left the firm, that her appeal had been refused, and only then was she given a letter saying she was due to be evicted in two days time!

Thanks to Duncan Lewis she was faced with impending street homelessness. Luckily Maria was able to organise with the London Coalition Against Poverty and by taking action made the Council put their mistake right.

Many people are not so lucky. Some have faced deportation or eviction because their lawyers missed important appeal deadlines or didn’t bother turning up for court. Families have been evicted, lost their chance of getting social housing and suffered traumatic experiences.

Duncan Lewis take public money to represent us. If they let anyone down, they are ripping all of us off.  We need to dump Duncan Lewis – and stand up for each other.

Share your Story:

“I know many similar or worse cases of negligence by Duncan Lewis. Here is my case: To represent me, they first took public funds, then charged me on a private basis but did literally NOTHING for me. I didn’t speak the language well at that time and each time I tried to discuss my file/case, I was told off. It was very hurtful. I was on my own at my appeal hearing which I lost. In short, these so-called solicitors ruined my life.”
- comment submitted by Selcuk Kirni

A refugee organisation says:

“I have two service users who have Duncan Lewis solicitors for Immigration claims. One solicitor is not answering calls re whether or not he has submitted a fresh claim. Another has submitted a NASS claim inappropriately. They have not let us know the outcome of application for Support from Social Services. No funds available for client to live on who is destitute and potentially homeless.

Another has given a service user no copy of her claim. We have no way of knowing whether he has submitted a claim or not. He also does not answer calls.”