Media law barristers.

The reputation jurisdiction covers several overlapping causes of action, each with its own remedies and its own limitation position. The instructions we place most often are these:

• Libel and slander claims, including preliminary issue hearings on natural and ordinary meaning and on the serious harm threshold.
• Defence of defamation claims, including truth, honest opinion, publication on a matter of public interest and qualified privilege.
• Misuse of private information and breach of confidence, including leaked documents, medical and financial information, and intrusive photography.
• Data protection and UK GDPR claims, subject access requests, inaccuracy claims and erasure or delisting requests against search engines.
• Harassment by publication, including sustained online campaigns, anonymous accounts and review bombing of a business.
• Malicious falsehood claims where a false statement causes financial loss to a business.
• Urgent injunctions to restrain publication, anonymity orders and applications to identify anonymous publishers.
• Pre publication advice for journalists, broadcasters, publishers, podcasters and documentary producers.
• Reporting restrictions and open justice applications in criminal, family and regulatory proceedings.
• Complaints and responses involving IPSO, Ofcom and platform takedown procedures.

Preserve the evidence. Screenshots with visible dates and URLs, archived versions of the page, engagement figures, the identities of those who shared the material, and any evidence of consequences such as cancelled contracts, lost bookings or withdrawn offers. Serious harm is proved with material of this kind, and it becomes harder to gather every week that passes.

Then get an assessment of meaning. Everything in a defamation claim follows from what the words actually mean to the ordinary reasonable reader, and that is a question for the court rather than for the person who feels aggrieved. Counsel will give a candid view on the likely meaning, on whether it is defamatory at common law, on whether serious harm is provable, and on the defences a publisher is likely to run. That advice sometimes leads to a strong claim and sometimes leads to a recommendation not to sue, which saves far more money than it costs.

Consider the remedy you actually want. Many clients want the article corrected, the search result removed and the story to stop, not damages. Those outcomes are frequently achieved faster through a well drafted letter, a data protection complaint or a platform takedown than through litigation, and a court claim can amplify the very publication you are trying to contain. Counsel will address that risk explicitly rather than pretending it does not exist.

Send the clerks the publication or link, the date it appeared, any correspondence you have already sent or received, and a short note on the harm caused. If publication is imminent and you need injunctive relief, say so in the first line and we will treat it as an emergency instruction, including out of hours where a story is running that evening.

Fees are confirmed in writing before work starts. A written advice on merits and meaning is a fixed fee. Letters of claim, responses and pre publication reviews are fixed. Injunction applications and hearings are quoted with the expected hearing length. For publishers and businesses with regular need, the clerks can put a retained arrangement in place so counsel is reachable at short notice.

Where the underlying story concerns criminal, regulatory or disciplinary proceedings, we can place counsel to handle both strands so that the media position and the substantive defence are consistent. That coordination is often what protects a client's position better than either case would on its own.