The solicitor at the centre of an anonymity dispute with the Solicitors Regulation Authority has stepped up his fight to keep his identity hidden. A High Court judge had ruled that the managing partner, known as ‘AB/X’, should be named after hearing allegations that he committed misconduct during a court hearings, which included swearing at counsel and shouting at another judge.

But AB/X has submitted an application for permission to appeal against the ruling, the court has confirmed.

If the Court of Appeal decide to overturn the decision of Mrs Justice May DBE, it may mean that AB/X cannot be reported to the SRA over his conduct.

The matters came to light after AB/X sued the Ministry of Justice in 2014 for not complying with a ‘subject access’ data protection request. He was successful and won damages - but his behaviour during subsequent costs hearings was criticised, including his attempt to bill the MoJ an hourly rate of £779.48 for himself.

The MoJ asked Mrs Justice May to lift anonymity so it could report AB/X to the SRA; on 26 July she agreed. 

It is not yet known what AB/X’s grounds of appeal would be, but his counsel David Boyle previously suggested that identifying the solicitor-advocate would be a breach the Equality Act 2010. Stating that some of his client's behaviour related to health conditions, Boyle said: ‘The publicity which would go with that condition being made public would, in the claimant’s view, not only interfere with his professional relationships with colleagues but would also by association taint the causes which he has championed and the clients whom he continues to represent’.

It had also been argued AB/X had an ‘association with high-profile clients and cases’ and said ‘members of the public inevitably elide him with his clients’.

‘Having spent his professional life taking on public cases’, Boyle said, ‘his family should be entitled to privacy in respect of events which were so catastrophic some time ago, which events continue to case a long shadow over their lives’.  

Making the order lifting anonymity, the judge said AB/X's privacy rights did not outweigh the importance of open justice.

AB/X’s counsel has declined to comment on the appeal. 

 

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