When I first wrote the Family Court without a Lawyer back in 2009 I didn’t write it for McKenzie friends to use, but I do know that over the years many have bought it, have come to rely upon on it and to recommend it. Those who have read it will know that in the book I suggest care and caution in choosing where to go to for support with a family court case – whether that is a lawyer or a McKenzie friend. They will know too, that I set out in the book the very particular reasons why someone who is struggling to pay for a lawyer is taking a little bit of a leap into the unknown when they choose to pay a McKenzie friend. You might strike gold or you might be taken in by someone who is happy to exploit you, or who just doesn’t know their own limits. And if it goes wrong you’ll be out of pocket with probably nowhere to turn for redress.

Last week provided a little reminder of why all that caution is important. A little bird told me that a certain McKenzie friend had been offering copies of The Family Court Without a Lawyer for free, in exchange for positive reviews. Sounds unscrupulous, no? Quite apart from the blatant copyright infringement. I was doubtful it was true. But it was.

Here’s what I found out.

First of all let me show you one of the ads in question, for context (there are various iterations / versions) :

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’ll start here with Mckenziefriend.net. Looks swish, right? But here’s where you need your critical faculties about you.

Points of Note :

• ‘The UK’s leading McKenzie friend service’. Big claim. How is it backed up? Do they operate in Scotland too? Do they even know Scotland is an ENTIRELY SEPARATE legal system with ENTIRELY different law? What is ‘leading’ and who is measuring it?
• ’30 community awards’. Impressive. Why are none of them named or shown? What are they for? Dog walking skills? Decorating?
• ‘Over 20,000 successful cases’. Hang on. That would take me 83 years to achieve assuming I worked full time Monday to Friday 48 weeks a year and ‘won’ a case every day (And that’s assuming I only ever ‘win’ cases). Maybe there are 83 Mckenzie friends?
• In fact, according to Linkedin (linked from top right) there are two of them. 41.5 years. Neither of them look 40.
• Scroll down…They assist with ‘the following cases and more:
  • Child arrangements
  • Divorce proceedings
  • Proceeds of crime
  • Immigration
  • Non-Molestation Orders
  • Driving offences
  • Parking fine disputes
  • Medical negligence
  • Employment tribunals’

  This is a wide field of expertise, for sure. Wider than mine. Doesn’t seem to cover copyright though. *Snark*

  What does ‘assisting’ mean? Advice? Litigation? Advocacy? Are they authorised and qualified to conduct litigation or advocacy? (it’s a criminal offence if not).

• Their ‘team’ (of 2) includes ‘Barristers, Solicitors and Law Students’. Strangely, none named. Are they practising barristers and solicitors? Or just law students? Neither of the two people identified as ’employees’ on Linkedin are regulated lawyers authorised to conduct litigation or advocacy. One is Preenay Chohan, and the Director of the company behind the site, and was never even a law student if the CV on LinkedIn is accurate. The other is also not a qualified lawyer (and seems to have have marginal involvement as a volunteer).
• They do however ‘have professional indemnity cover of £5m and are regulated by the ICO’, according to the site. Which is reassuring…Isn’t it? There is an ICO logo at the bottom of the page which links to the ICO website. Must be legit. There is an insurance company logo which links to their page too. Ditto. The funny thing is that when you search for the name of the website…or the name of the company that is referred to on the LinkedIn page (McKenzie Friend Services Ltd)…or the name of the second Mckenzie friend company recently registered against Mr Chohan’s name at the same address (RST Holdings)…or the physical address in Birmingham itself – none of them brings up any relevant registration with the ICO. What a surprise. I wonder what would happen if you asked to see their certificate of insurance?
• The site itself isn’t directly identified as a trading name of McKenzie Friend Services Ltd. You only get that link via the LinkedIn page and other social media platforms. But LinkedIn for example clearly identifies them as the same outfit. I’m no company law specialist, but I’m pretty sure you are supposed to identify which company is trading on your website so people know who they are trading with and what legal protections they have (or don’t). Where the new company fits in to all this, I don’t really know. It’s got the same address, same director, same broad purpose. And that Director is the same Preenay Chohan who has been the director of various other assorted companies, one of which was the subject of a compulsory winding up order in February, just a week or so before the new RST Holdings company sprung up last month (that one was a lettings agency by the look of it). A veritable entrepreneur.
• Companies House also suggests a very small turnover for a company with 20,000 happy clients and 2-10 employees (Linkedin). in fact it shows a very small turnover for a company with one mildly impressed client. But then, depending on where you look this company / site / individual doesn’t charge for its services at all. Except way down the website’s facebook page and on the Insta account that is linked to from a second, related facebook profile called win law 902, which seems to be Mr Chohan’s page. Anyway, that page helpfully takes us through to Mckenziefriends.net on Insta (keeping up at the back?) which alongside the price list also offers free copies of the book for free. Yes, my book. Somewhere else.
• Some of what is on offer is alarmingly cheap (£46 for a bargain bucket enforcement application) but some not so much (£833 for divorce + financial package, £1k for ‘full case management’ – unclear what ‘case management’ means). It’s not really clear what you’d get for your money, but I’m going to stick my neck out and say two things : a) you won’t be getting expert legal advice or representation from a qualified lawyer, and b) on that price list either the company doesn’t really have 20,000 clients (happy or otherwise), or it isn’t declaring all its income. Or maybe a bit of both. Or perhaps it’s just a more charitably minded outfit than I am giving it credit for. They do clearly like giving away things for free.

That’s the site. What about this book in exchange for reviews thing? Well, although he/they WERE dumb enough to publicly pass off my book as theirs / theirs to give away, none of these social media posts was dumb enough to explicitly say that the book is offered in exchange for a review, but that’s where the DM comes in. Here’s what happens if you DM as requested in the posts :

“Hello, Thank you for getting in touch. I feel a free consultation may also benefit you if you are based in England or Wales. If yes, please book via calendly.com/mckenzie-consultation We are also more than happy to send you a FREE copy, but please leave us a review on https://g.page/r/CbranJVR9zXdEBI/review. Please also get in touch if you need any further support? This is the book. [link removed]”

That is clearly an inducement to leave a review in exchange for the freebie. And yes, they do provide the ENTIRE BOOK, cover to cover for free, and in a shareable form. Or they did. Until we pointed out the issue to the site unwittingly hosting it (yumpu).

And of course once you’ve done that they’ve got you. Got your details, your booking, your review. Got you on their suckers list for all I know.

I’ve confirmed this and have screenshots of this message being generated in response to requests made both before and AFTER Mr Chohan was called out for this on social media (not by me, by someone else who recognised it as inappropriate). So it’s not just a simple whoopsie.

(Another mystery is that if you click on the review link in the message above you get a whole different set of google reviews for a business called McKenzie Friend Services, but this one has a Manchester address. It links back to the same mckenziefriend.net web address. Those are mainly 5 star reviews, posted on the day of the Facebook offer for a free copy of the book with no comments. Coincidence?)

Look, this is all very tedious. And frankly I’ve only bothered checking it out because I’ve been cooped up in isolation with covid and I’m stir crazy. And it was the gift that just kept giving. My book is deliberately cheap because I know the people that need it don’t have a lot to spare. It’s usually less than £20 on Amazon. And I’m happy if its reaching people who need it. But I do put a lot of time, expertise and effort into writing that book and into keeping it up to date, and whilst I get a decent royalty cheque twice a year, I could frankly earn a lot more money by just charging my hourly rate as a lawyer and going to court and not bothering to update the book. When I started I nearly bankrupted myself taking time off to finish the book – even with a one off grant, it represented a massive hit on my income when I had a new baby to feed and a mortgage to pay. This time round it took me a month to do the updates for the fourth edition (unpaid – bye bye December earnings), and yet the royalties I will generate in the course of a year, I could probably now have earnt in a day or two at court, not a month. So, for me, neither the book nor this post are about the money. More importantly, the copyright actually belongs to the publishers who also work bloody hard and deserve to earn a living (they publish stuff for the little people, including the Great Post Office Scandal. They are good guys, not some massive publishing house).

Even more importantly, exploitation makes me cross : if this outfit is prepared to rip people off by giving away things that don’t belong to them, and if not all the claims on their site stack up : How much can you trust them with your money and your case? Use your eyes and your brains. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

So I want to say this to those who are thinking about using a McKenzie friend (not just this one – any McKenzie friend). If you can afford a lawyer, get one. No decent McKenzie friend will tell you otherwise – a McKenzie friend can help with some things, but they aren’t the same as lawyers. If you are using a professional Mckenzie friend, whether you are paying for them or not: check them out with care. Any old scammer can knock up a flashy website in a couple of hours. Any old busybody can wreck your case within a couple of hours too (I know, I’ve had to pick up the pieces for clients who realised too late their ‘friend’ was not helping do anything apart from unburden them of their life savings). Dig properly. Does the website have the names and CV of real people – those who will be offering a service? What are their credentials? Is there an ICO registration number that checks out, an address and company number? Or is it all shiny offices, references to ‘our team’ and lifestyle pictures? Don’t rely on what they imply or even what they explicitly state on their website. Ask to see proof of credentials, insurance, references. If they won’t answer your questions don’t touch them with a bargepole. Google their name. Amazing what you can find out. And find out what service they are actually going to give you for your money before you part with it. Get it in writing.

I’m not saying don’t ever use a McKenzie friend. There are some good ones out there. But take great care. And… whether you have a Mckenzie friend, a lawyer or neither – the book won’t hurt as a companion (of course, I would say that, wouldn’t I?). [update : this is a really useful link, telling you what to look out for when choosing a McKenzie].

The 4th edition will be out soon. Those who have been given a free copy of the 3rd edition are welcome to it (though it’s now quite out of date and your link will have stopped working if its a dodgy one from Chohan towers). Anyway, I recommend you spend a few quid on the up to date version, because 2017 (when the 3rd edition was published) is a long time ago in family law terms. And, for those of you who were recommended to use it for your family court matters in Scotland or further afield – do take care. My book is not about the law or procedure anywhere apart from England & Wales (I know nothing about the law anywhere else!).

For readers who have endured this far – you can get 20% of the 4th edition when it’s out – or off of any of the other books published by Bath Publishing, using discount code yumpu22by ordering direct from the publishers : www.bathpublishing.com.

Finally finally, if you need some help and still can’t afford the book, check out www.familycourtinfo.org.uk and in particular the videos that we made for the 3rd edition (along with lots of other useful ones made by other people). People seem to find them helpful. Check out www.transparencyproject.org.uk (though they don’t provide advice), or www.frg.org.uk or Citizens Advice or AdviceNow or Advocate or Rights of Women. And please check if you qualify for legal aid, even if you think you don’t.

 

PS I’ve spared you guys most of the endless screenshots evidencing the above, but trust me, I have them.

PPS Mediators – they are also offering MIAM Certificates?!