Freeths, the legal firm that has been lauded for its work with the sub-postmasters affected by the Post Office Horizon scandal, were thrilled to be named Law Firm of the Year at the prestigious Legal Business Awards 2024.
The awards are described as the ‘most prestigious event in the legal calendar’ and celebrate the very best in the legal profession.
The award marked the end of another exceptional year for Freeths, one of the UK’s largest national firms with more than 800 fee-earners (and 1,100 staff) at 13 offices, including the highly successful Milton Keynes office, led by Jonathan Hambleton, from where the team deliver a full-service offering to a wide range of local corporate, SME and private clients.
This award recognised in particular:
- The firm’s commitment to ESG. This year, Freeths became the largest UK law firm to be designated as a Certified B Corporation, which measures a business’s entire social and environmental impact. The firm has launched its first Responsible Business Report.
- The firm’s commitment to technical innovation. Freeths won Best Technology team of the Year at the British Legal Technology Awards last year and is one of the few Top 50 law firms to be adopting Enterprise-secure AI.
- The firm’s work with the sub-postmasters wrongly prosecuted by the Post Office.
As we enter 2025, Freeths will support further victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal as a new compensation scheme launches.
Simon Hobbs, heads up Freeths’ 10-strong Dispute Resolution (litigation) team in Milton Keynes and is also the deputy head of the national team which won two landmark court cases on behalf of sub-postmasters wrongly prosecuted by the Post Office, depicted in the major four-part 2024 ITV drama Mr. Bates v The Post Office.
The TV drama told the story of Alan Bates, a former sub-postmaster, and his campaign on behalf of the victims of one of the most serious miscarriages of justice in British legal history when hundreds of sub-postmasters were accused of fraud, theft and false accounting by the Post Office over a faulty Horizon IT system.
In the face of intransigence, obfuscation, and worse, on the part of the Post Office, the Freeths team fought to take the case of the 555 sub-postmaster victims to the High Court after two other law firms had previously tried and failed. After a painstaking group litigation, judgments led to a successful mediation and a Public Inquiry being set up in 2020, which was converted to a statutory inquiry in June 2021. The Inquiry is ongoing.
Commenting on his experiences of working with Freeths, Sir Alan Bates said:
“A first-class and extremely competent firm that came to the aid of a major victims’ group when all else had failed to expose the truth and when justice had eluded the group for many years. Having failed to find legal support for so long, Freeths took the victims on board and helped to deliver outstanding success with judgments that have changed so many lives.”
Since the documentary, scores of sub-postmasters have now had their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal. In April 2021, 39 were exonerated in one judgment which described the wrongful convictions as an ‘affront to justice’. In all around 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted for theft and false accounting, of whom 236 were jailed.
Freeths is now advising postmasters and other people who are among the hundreds whose criminal convictions are being overturned as a result of the flawed Horizon IT system.
The launch of the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme (HCRS) is benefiting those who have had to live with wrongful convictions for years and have not yet received compensation after the original High Court rulings secured by Freeths and Justice for Postmasters Alliance (JFSA).
Freeths is now urging people to come forward to find out if they are eligible under the new scheme and can be contacted at OverTurnedConvictionTeam@freeths.co.uk
Those who are eligible for the HCRS will have:
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Either managed or worked (with or without an employment contract) in a Post Office branch that was using or had installed the Horizon system;
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Been convicted between September 23, 1996 and December 31, 2018 of offences including false accounting, theft or fraud (including conspiracy to commit these offences); and
- Been based in England, Wales or Northern Ireland (Scotland has a separate system).
Relatives of deceased victims are also able to apply. Freeths’ national team, led by James Hartley and Simon Hobbs, is now considered to be one of the foremost Dispute Resolution teams in the UK.
Simon said:
“We are immensely proud to win Law Firm of the Year, immensely proud of the entire Freeths Dispute Resolution team, who have worked tirelessly for the wronged sub-postmasters, and immensely proud of our Milton Keynes roots.”
“We would be delighted to hear from any corporates, SMEs or private clients in Milton Keynes or surrounds who would like to discuss anything with us, across the full gambit of legal services.”
To find out more, visit the Freeths website at www.freeths.co.uk
