Simon Horsfield published an all-caps celebration of double-digit growth, 450 new matters and a 2030 plan to make Horsfield Menzies the country’s “pre-eminent boutique HR legal firm”. Unfortunately, the title called it HORSEFIELD MENZIES. By contrast, TCAP’s own victory lap counted 162 articles, named the work and included the full index. One was arrogance with receipts. The other was a founder shouting his own surname incorrectly above the byline.
Victory laps are allowed. TCAP took one on 8 August 2026 after publishing 162 articles in 100 days. Deliberately arrogant and obscenely long, the article carried an index showing every fucking entry. It named the series, people, companies, complaints, judgments and documents that had turned a one-man blog into searchable infrastructure.
Horsfield Menzies took its own lap on 18 December 2025. Simon Horsfield’s article celebrated growth, new offices, new recruits, promotions, client wins, 450 opened matters and a grand plan for pre-eminence by 2030. It delivered a short, polished account written entirely from the comfortable end of the invoice.
Unfortunately, the headline read “HORSEFIELD MENZIES’ HIGHLIGHTS”.
On its own, that extra E would make a decent isolated joke. However, the same firm had spent part of 2025 placing an extra legal claim into my litigation history, contacting my medical centre, applying five-figure costs pressure and receiving a complaint about its conduct that produced no communicated outcome. One mistake embarrassed the brand. The other helped shape the character of a disabled opponent.
This is not merely Blog vs Blog. It is Blog vs Behaviour with both victory laps left open on the desk.
The Founder Sat Beneath The Wrong Surname
Horsfield Menzies did not bury the mistake in paragraph twelve of a trainee’s first draft. Instead, the firm placed it in the title, printed it in block capitals and credited the article to “Simon Horsfield – Partner” four lines later. His correctly spelt byline sits directly beneath a headline that gives his surname an additional letter. Even the webpage appears to clear its throat and issue a correction.
Typography makes the whole thing better. Lower case might have allowed the error to shuffle past reception with its coat collar raised. By contrast, block capitals escort it into Google, switch on the boardroom lights and introduce it to every prospective client. As a result, the extra E receives top billing before quietly leaving the partnership ahead of the byline.
Most firms would fix that. Nevertheless, as of 19 August 2026, Horsfield Menzies had left it live for eight months. Meanwhile, the article underneath still announces a vision of becoming the country’s pre-eminent boutique HR legal firm and setting a standard for other employment-law teams.
Pre-eminent. Cutting edge. Unable to spell the name above the fucking door.
Two Victory Laps, Two Kinds Of Swagger
TCAP’s 162-article piece never pretended to be modest. One section anticipated the criticism directly: “Some people will call this article arrogant. Correct.” Later, it acknowledged that TCAP had not won every proceeding or complaint before explaining the larger contest it believed it was winning. Accordingly, the swagger remained explicit because false humility would have looked ridiculous beside that volume of work.
Horsfield’s version, however, uses the corporate method. Instead of admitting to a boast, it hides self-regard inside gratitude, growth figures and adjectives. The year was fantastic. Apparently, every recruit was talented and every win incredible. Clients were wonderfully loyal. By 2030, other HR legal teams would aspire to the standard Horsfield Menzies intended to set.
There is nothing wrong with celebrating real work. However, a victory lap reveals what the runner thinks counts. TCAP counted articles, named targets, listed titles, recorded setbacks and explained how the archive had expanded. Horsfield Menzies, meanwhile, counted opened matters, offices, personnel and reputation. One looked outward at the public record. The other looked into the reception mirror and applauded the fucking tailoring.
162 Receipts Versus 450 Mysteries
The number 162 came with an audit trail. Specifically, TCAP’s piece listed every article since the previous birthday lap and organised the entries by month. Consequently, readers could inspect the titles, search the names and decide whether the claimed publishing sprint existed. The article also explained what the work had built: Page Partners, The Cepac Files, Chambers Chatter, Renting Rubin, Customer Corner, Shareholder Spotlight and individual records for people previously protected by institutional fog.
Better still, TCAP’s hostile victory lap spelt Horsfield Menzies correctly. It named the firm and indexed multiple articles about its lawyers without donating Simon an extra vowel. The enemy blog completed the branding check that the partner’s own celebration missed.
By contrast, Horsfield Menzies offered “450 new matters opened”. A matter opened is not a case won, a complaint resolved or a person treated well. It is a file-opening metric. However, the article supplied no denominator, outcome table or explanation of what happened after those matters entered the system.
Meanwhile, even the reference to victories stayed behind frosted glass. Simon celebrated client acquisitions and added a parenthetical nod to wins achieved for clients, yet named nothing. No case, result, principle or difficult professional decision disturbed the polished surface. Instead, readers received a number and an invitation to clap.
TCAP’s 162 was a catalogue. Horsfield Menzies’ 450 was a reception-screen counter with no button marked show your fucking work.
One Extra E. One Extra Claim.
The spelling mistake becomes less innocent when placed beside the firm’s approach to accuracy in my case. On 5 March 2025, Sam Butler sent a letter presenting proceedings from 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024 as my litigation history. Unfortunately, that sequence was wrong. My 2018 claim settled before a hearing, the 2020 claim did not belong to me, the 2022 Cummins matter had reached the Employment Appeal Tribunal and the 2024 Cepac case remained live.
Above all, the 2020 proceedings involved somebody else. In other words, they were not an arguable characterisation, an inconvenient interpretation or a date placed in the wrong column. Horsfield Menzies inserted another person’s litigation into my history. I corrected the record. Yet Butler did not retract the history he had supplied.
An extra E in Simon Horsfield’s headline makes the founder look careless. An extra claim in a disabled litigant’s history helps make that opponent look serial. Moreover, it creates an atmosphere in which every complaint appears habitual, every challenge looks obsessive and every refusal to submit can be filed as another example of the person’s supposed nature.
The firm could spell £25,000 to £30,000 when estimating costs. It could also spell “quite frankly bizarre and utterly vexatious” when describing my conduct. Somehow, accuracy became more relaxed when the subject was whose fucking court case it had placed beside my name.
450 Matters Opened. One Complaint Went Nowhere.
On 23 March 2025, I sent a detailed complaint about Sam Butler to Angus Menzies, Simon Horsfield and Daniel Rubin. Specifically, it raised the contact with my GP or medical centre, the handling of disability-related information, misleading statements, aggressive costs pressure and the firm’s litigation conduct. Moreover, all three recipients held the authority to examine it. However, no investigation outcome reached me.
Horsfield Menzies’ own policy says that making a complaint will not affect how it handles a case. In addition, the same document directs concerns about professional behaviour, including unfair treatment linked to disability, towards the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Therefore, the firm plainly recognises that behaviour and disability belong inside its accountability framework when the words appear on a PDF.
The practical test arrived in its owners’ inboxes. They could have commissioned an independent review, rejected the allegations with reasons, corrected the false litigation history or explained what safeguards they had applied. Instead, the case continued while my complaints, correspondence and distressed reactions accumulated as conduct material.
Nine months later, Simon’s highlights article celebrated 450 new matters. However, my complaint did not need a celebratory bullet point. It needed an outcome. Horsfield Menzies knew how to count work entering the building. Accountability concerns what leaves with an answer, especially when the person waiting outside does not carry a purchase order.
The 2030 Vision Has No Rear-View Mirror
Simon’s 2030 vision says Horsfield Menzies wants other HR legal teams to admire the breadth of its client base, the skills and reputation of its lawyers and the cutting-edge quality of its work. However, notice what the measurement excludes. For example, there is no ambition to become the firm most careful with an unrepresented opponent’s medical vulnerability. Complaint handling does not enter the vision. Neither does correcting damaging factual errors when the person affected lacks corporate resources.
Consequently, that omission explains the whole fucking brochure. Clients appear as loyal patrons. Lawyers become skilled professionals and reputation sits as an objective in its own right. By contrast, opponents exist only as the terrain across which a client win travels.
TCAP’s victory lap, however, included a section called the cost ledger. It stopped joking long enough to record breakdown, illness, humiliation, exhaustion and the years consumed by corporate and legal procedures. The article did that because output without cost becomes another marketing dashboard. In other words, victory has a body count, even when nobody dies.
By comparison, Horsfield Menzies supplied no equivalent ledger. Double-digit growth came without the pressure applied to the disabled litigant in person across from its client. Likewise, the 450 matters arrived without the complaint that disappeared into the ownership tier. Incredible wins floated free of the methods, errors and people processed along the way.
That is not a vision looking towards 2030. It is a windscreen painted with the firm’s own reflection.
Arrogance With An Audit Trail
TCAP is not neutral about Horsfield Menzies. Nor does it pretend to be. The 162-article victory lap used profanity, swagger and enough black humour to make a corporate communications team request bereavement leave. Yet its central claim remained inspectable. Here were the articles and names. The index followed. So did the losses, complaints, documents and reasons the archive existed.
By comparison, Simon Horsfield’s victory lap offered a different kind of arrogance. It presented growth as virtue, volume as quality and aspiration as achievement. Meanwhile, the article thanked loyal clients while remaining silent about the people on the receiving end of those wonderfully billable successes. Finally, it declared an intention to set the professional standard without noticing that its own title had already failed a primary-school spelling check.
Ultimately, that typo is not the scandal. It is the logo for the larger problem. Horsfield Menzies can describe itself as pre-eminent, publish advice about disability, sell workplace investigations and lecture employers about psychological safety. Meanwhile, the behaviour file still contains another person’s claim in my supposed history, contact with my medical centre, five-figure costs pressure and a complaint to three owners with no communicated outcome.
Finally, two victory laps entered the archive. One openly admitted its arrogance and brought the index. The other wrapped its arrogance in client gratitude, stared towards 2030 and misspelt the founder’s surname above his own byline.
TCAP brought 162 receipts.
Simon Horsfield brought an extra fucking E.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Sources
- HORSEFIELD MENZIES’ HIGHLIGHTS
- Cummins Confidential Special : Surgical Summer – 162 Articles In 100 Days And We Are Fucking Winning
- Horsfield Menzies : Complaints Policy
- Horsfield Menzies : Angus Menzies And Simon Horsfield Got The Sam Butler Complaint – Welcome To Category Fucking Zero
- Horsfield Menzies : Blog vs Behaviour – When Misconduct Meets Disability, Unless It Is Lee Thompson
- Horsfield Menzies : Blog vs Behaviour – Investigate The Reaction, Not The Complaint
- Horsfield Menzies : Blog vs Behaviour – Harassment Was More Than A Policy. It Was A Litigation Strategy