Partner rebuked for telling clients they could share court Zoom link

A City partner who wrongly advised her clients that they could share a Zoom link for an upcoming trial has been rebuked by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Lawyers from US-headquartered McDermott Will & Emery were referred to the divisional court after allowing the libel trial to be live streamed to clients based abroad in July 2020.

The firm reported itself to the SRA following the mistake, and the SRA today said it had sanctioned partner Ziva Robertson, the solicitor with overall responsibility for the matter.

The decision notice stated that the court had give directions at a pre-trial review for the trial to take place on a socially distanced basis during the pandemic. A second courtroom was reserved to allow the press and public to watch a live video feed. This was deemed by the court as an extension of the primary courtroom and it was ordered there would be no transmission of a live transcript, audio or video feed outside this room.

Shortly before the trial was due to begin, Robertson incorrectly advised her clients that they could share the Zoom link sent to participants with a third party who wanted to observe remotely. She repeated that advice later that day when the Zoom link had become password-protected. 

The clients then shared it with a number of individuals outside the primary or secondary courtrooms, breaching a court order. It came to the attention of the judge during the trial that someone appeared to be observing remotely without permission.

Two days later, when Robertson realised she had incorrectly advised her clients they could share the link, she wrote to the court: ‘I gained the impression on Monday – and told them – that they would be able to [share the link]. I cannot now recall how or from whom I gained that impression, but I entirely accept that it was wrong.’

She later explained her initial view that the link could be shared was based partly on a conversation with the partner with day-to-day conduct of the matter. She explained that ‘I asked my partner…, who had been closer to the "Opus coalface" whether the Zoom link was streaming the trial and whether it was unsecure. She said she thought so, and I asked whether it would be OK for the clients’ US team to use it too. I had thought she said yes but I now think that we were at cross purposes.’

The High Court considered the explanations and accepted that this was not a case of deliberate defiance of a court order.

Robertson admitted she advised her clients that they could act in a way which she ought to have known would result in a breach of a court order. The SRA accepted her conduct was inadvertent, she was remorseful and that the advice was given during a demanding trial amid general confusion and uncertainty around remote and hybrid trials in the first stage of lockdown. 

Robertson agreed to pay £600 costs.

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