Google has acquired a malicious sense of humour, though not the kind heard at corporate breakfasts, where a man in a waistcoat describes redundancy as an exciting journey. I mean the properly vicious kind. The kind that arranges two search results together and lets the reader enjoy the accident. On Halloween morning, I found precisely that little gift waiting for me.
Horsfield Menzies had parked its Business Protection webpage slightly above The Cummins Accountability Project on Google. Above sat a polished advertisement for protecting commercial interests; below sat TCAP, which has spent months examining the firm’s conduct in my Cepac litigation. A few millimetres separated the sales pitch from its documentary hangover. Better still, the named solicitor on that page was Daniel fucking Rubin. I could almost hear the algorithm laughing through its teeth.
Daniel Rubin And The Corporate Umbrella
Horsfield Menzies offers businesses advice on restrictive covenants, confidential information and employee departures. It also promotes help with urgent injunctions and commercial disputes. These are legitimate services, since companies sometimes need protection when executives leave with sensitive information or employees breach enforceable obligations. There is no scandal in offering legal advice about those problems.
Corporate marketing, however, rarely knows when to stop dressing itself for the opera, and the firm’s page presents an orderly world of expertise, strategy and reassuring professionals. Trouble arrives, and the lawyers apparently assemble around a conference table like superheroes in tailored suits. Somebody produces a contract. Somebody else reaches for an injunction. Eventually, the client receives a letter and an invoice that could stun a rhinoceros.
The page itself does not claim to suppress criticism or remove hostile search results, which is not its advertised purpose. Nevertheless, its position above TCAP offered irresistible accidental comedy. Here was a business-protection brochure hovering over an independent publication examining the people behind it. If a marketing agency had staged that juxtaposition, it would have charged for six months of strategy meetings.
A Trusted Network Of Counsel
The best line on the page concerns Horsfield Menzies’ “trusted network of Counsel and IT experts”, a genuinely useful resource for prospective clients. Litigation often demands technical evidence, specialist advice and a barrister who can handle a difficult hearing. A firm with established contacts has something worth advertising.
My imagination, however, immediately supplied the Hollywood version. Somewhere beneath the offices, Daniel Rubin maintains an underground command centre. Barristers wait beside illuminated telephones, while IT specialists monitor a wall of flashing screens. When a director breaks a covenant, Rubin presses a red button. The fucking legal cavalry descends through the ceiling before anyone finishes the coffee.
Reality is less cooperative. Professional contacts do not guarantee a barrister’s availability in every case, nor does a network advertised for commercial protection necessarily cover every employment dispute. Those distinctions matter. Yet the phrase remains striking when placed beside the judgment in my case. There, difficulties finding replacement counsel helped reinforce a decision to end the proceedings altogether.
The Interview That Never Arrived
The underlying dispute began in August 2024, when Page Outsourcing discussed a possible interview with me for a position at Cepac. During the telephone call on 21 August, we discussed wages and the prospect of meeting the following week. I also explained a gap in employment linked to treatment for mental-health difficulties. The promised interview confirmation never followed.
I later brought a disability-discrimination claim. Cepac denied liability and said its recruiting manager had not shortlisted me. Its HR Business Partner, Maria Walker, explained that position in correspondence. Meanwhile, the pleadings raised questions about health-related information sent by the recruitment agency. Those facts deserved scrutiny because they concerned the decision I was challenging.
Instead, the proceedings gradually became a different kind of beast. My communications, public articles and procedural applications occupied more and more of the argument. The missing interview began to resemble a minor character in its own fucking story. By the time the case reached its final hearing, the argument concerned whether the litigation could continue at all.
When Procedure Ate The Original Claim
The Tribunal plainly had to consider conduct issues, since litigation cannot simply ignore arguments about correspondence, witness concerns or compliance with orders. Equally, procedural questions do not erase the distinction between an alleged wrong and the behaviour of the person alleging it. The first issue in my case concerned recruitment. The later dispute concerned whether I should be permitted to pursue it.
Horsfield Menzies represented Cepac throughout the relevant proceedings. Meanwhile, Page Outsourcing maintained a separate defence with its own legal representatives. As the case grew more contentious, both respondents focused on the conduct arguments. The original discrimination allegations remained disputed, but they never reached a full merits hearing.
That difference matters far more than the glossy brochures. A company can win a strike-out application without proving that its original decision was lawful. The procedural outcome may stand unless an appeal changes it, but it is not the same as a court examining the recruitment evidence and rejecting discrimination on the merits. The two outcomes should never share a name simply because one party prefers the sound of it.
Wendy Miller Leaves The Stage
Cepac had instructed Wendy Miller as counsel. She had previously represented Cummins in separate litigation involving me, and my objections to her involvement emerged amid increasingly contentious proceedings. Miller subsequently withdrew (the dagger from my ribs, some might argue). Her departure then featured prominently in the respondents’ arguments about the possibility of a fair hearing.
The judgment records difficulties securing replacement counsel for Cepac. According to the respondents, the history and hostility of the litigation made the task especially challenging. They argued that a suitable barrister needed substantial experience. The withdrawal therefore became more than an inconvenience with a diary. It became part of the case for ending the claim.
Now recall the firm’s Business Protection page. On that page, access to specialist counsel forms part of the commercial reassurance; in my judgment, difficulty obtaining alternative counsel became a factor supporting strike-out. Neither fact cancels the other, and the services are not identical. Still, the contrast is a gift. One document sells professional reach; the other describes a rather awkward limit to it.
Paragraph 170 And The Missing Replacement
Employment Judge Andrew James addressed representation difficulties in paragraph 170, referring to Cepac “struggling to find alternative representation”. The judgment treated that difficulty as reinforcement for an existing conclusion about fair-trial impossibility. It also referred to the reported apprehension of Cepac witness Peter Grey. Therefore, the absence of replacement counsel was not the sole basis for strike-out.
That distinction does not make the reference irrelevant, because professional representation still formed part of the Tribunal’s proportionality assessment. The claimant lost the opportunity for a merits hearing. Meanwhile, the respondent’s difficulties finding another specialist advocate helped strengthen the argument that a hearing could not proceed fairly.
I continue to challenge that outcome in the Employment Appeal Tribunal. The appeal concerns legal reasoning and proportionality, not the magical properties of a marketing webpage. Nevertheless, the webpage provides a useful comparison: Horsfield Menzies advertises a network of counsel for complex business disputes. Its client’s difficulties obtaining counsel then entered the judicial reasoning in my discrimination case. You do not need a conspiracy theory to find that interesting.
A Barrister Explains The Barrister Problem
Page Outsourcing had counsel at the hearing on 24 April 2026. The judgment identifies him as Mr B Gray, who addressed Miller’s withdrawal and Cepac’s reported difficulties finding replacement counsel. His submissions stressed the demands of a contentious, complicated case. In particular, he doubted that a relatively junior barrister could take it on easily.
There is glorious theatre in the sight of one corporate defendant’s barrister explaining another corporate defendant’s difficulty finding a barrister. Meanwhile, Cepac has Daniel Rubin present as its solicitor. Nobody needs to pretend their attendance solved the replacement-counsel problem, because the respondents had separate cases, representatives and instructions. But the scene still belongs in a courtroom farce written by somebody with a grudge against legal stationery.
The argument also exposes the competing forms of difficulty before the Tribunal. The respondents described problems assembling the legal support they wanted. I was an unrepresented claimant seeking to pursue a disability-discrimination complaint. Those positions were not identical. The judgment considered them within the same broader question of whether a fair hearing remained possible.
The Hearing Without The Claimant
I did not attend the April hearing. I had raised objections involving disability, postponement, late material and procedural fairness. The respondents disputed my position, and Judge James decided to proceed without me as Rubin appeared for Cepac and Gray represented Page Outsourcing. They advanced the respondents’ cases before a Tribunal considering strike-out and costs.
The resulting judgment found against me on conduct and fairness. It struck out the discrimination claims. It also imposed a substantial costs order. Those are actual findings and orders, rather than the outcome I wanted. I dispute their legal adequacy through the appellate process. That disagreement does not change what the judgment currently says.
The document also supplied one tiny piece of accidental comedy by identifying Cepac’s solicitor as Mr D Rubian. After extensive judicial attention to my words, the judgment could not spell Rubin’s surname correctly. It is a trivial typo, of course. Nevertheless, I appreciate the irony. Precision is apparently a magnificent virtue until somebody has to type the fucking nameplate.
Twenty Thousand Pounds And No Merits Decision
The Tribunal ordered me to pay Cepac £20,000 in costs, after recording costs schedules exceeding £50,000. For Cepac, the ruling brought a substantial procedural victory. For me, it imposed a five-figure financial consequence without a full hearing of the underlying discrimination allegations. Those outcomes describe different parts of the same record.
The judgment did not determine whether the recruitment decision discriminated against me. Instead, it concluded that my conduct and the surrounding circumstances prevented the claim from continuing, a distinction that matters whenever anyone portrays the result as a vindication of recruitment. Winning on procedure is a real victory. It is not the same as winning on the merits.
Consider the economics. A telephone call about a possible interview generated a dispute that eventually attracted enormous legal expenditure. The interview never happened. The parties then spent months arguing about correspondence, hearings, evidence and conduct. Finally, a costs order arrived in place of the merits decision I had sought. Whatever one’s view of my behaviour, the entire journey deserves an exceptionally dark fucking diagram.
The Other Daniel Rubin Sales Brochure
Horsfield Menzies also celebrates victories involving document disclosure. In June 2026, the firm published an account of its High Court success for STARK Building Materials (UK) Limited, involving a former procurement executive, a non-competition restriction and commercially sensitive information. The firm highlighted its success enforcing contractual protections.
The published account also discussed obtaining specific disclosure. Horsfield Menzies presented its efforts as an example of determined litigation. The description included judicial praise for the firm’s “tenacious” approach to pursuing relevant material. Rubin featured among the lawyers leading the work, alongside Rachel Rigg and Calum Maclean.
I have no quarrel with lawyers pursuing documents their clients need. Courts depend on relevant evidence, and proper disclosure matters. What interests me is the contrast with my experience. In the Cepac proceedings, I repeatedly challenged disclosure, recruitment records, redactions and the handling of bundles, although the respondents disputed my concerns. Yet those questions formed part of the contentious procedural landscape rather than receiving a merits hearing that could resolve the recruitment allegations.
When Persistence Changes Its Name
Persistence enjoys a fascinating career in legal marketing: when a solicitor pursues material for a commercial client, the quality becomes tenacity. The firm’s website can celebrate it, and the litigation victory supplies a handsome case study. When an unrepresented claimant keeps questioning the evidence, the reception may prove rather less enthusiastic.
I am not claiming that every letter I wrote deserved praise. Nor were the disclosure obligations in STARK identical to those in my Employment Tribunal case. The disputes had different parties, duties and procedural histories. But those differences do not prohibit comparison. They make it more important to examine the specific arguments, directions and evidence in each case.
For TCAP, the question is simple. Why should documentary determination carry such favourable branding in one context while persistence becomes part of the problem in another? The answer may depend on the conduct, relevance and legal rules involved. It cannot rest solely on which side employs the expensive lawyers. A professional slogan sounds splendid until somebody tests it against an awkward file.
Business Protection Is Not Reality Protection
Horsfield Menzies sells legal services rather than editorial control over the internet, and its Business Protection page discusses commercial rights and relationships. It does not advertise the removal of critical blogs. Nor does its appearance above TCAP prove anything about the quality of its legal advice. I have no interest in inventing a promise the firm never made.
Reputation, however, depends on more than what a firm publishes about itself. A website can present its expertise, highlight victories and display polished partner biographies. It cannot dictate every account of the litigation in which its lawyers appeared. Once a dispute produces a public judgment, other people can read it and compare the record with the firm’s promotional claims.
That is what TCAP does. The site is free to read and personally funded, although domains, hosting and research tools cost money. Its articles examine public documents, competing accounts and the conduct of organisations. I also invite corrections supported by evidence. None of that makes my criticism infallible. Equally, disliking the criticism does not make the underlying paperwork evaporate.
Google Declines The Confidentiality Agreement
Google does not owe anyone flattering neighbours. Search positions change according to queries, locations, devices and the algorithm’s shifting preferences. I cannot promise that the same results will appear in the same order tomorrow. On the morning I checked, however, Horsfield Menzies’ Business Protection page sat slightly above TCAP. That was the observed fact, and it supplied the joke.
Imagine Rubin on a Victorian balcony overlooking the commercial landscape. He holds a brass telescope and wears a silk dressing gown. Below him, a disreputable newspaper proprietor nails extracts from public documents to the front gate as the housekeeper reports another unwelcome bundle. Rubin adjusts the telescope, but the fucking documents remain. The neighbours can still read them.
A search result cannot settle a legal disagreement. Nor has Google delivered a judicial finding against Horsfield Menzies. It has merely placed two competing narratives close together. One describes professional business protection; the other invites readers to examine what happened when the firm’s lawyers represented Cepac. For a publication called Blog vs Behaviour, the arrangement could hardly be more obliging.
The Blog vs Behaviour Test
The purpose of this series is to compare professional statements with documented conduct, including the firm’s writing about litigation strategy, evidence and workplace standards. TCAP examines how those themes appear in real disputes. Sometimes the comparison reveals a direct contradiction. Elsewhere, it produces a tension, a question or an irony worth explaining.
This instalment belongs in that last category, because the firm’s advertised counsel network sits beside a judgment recording Cepac’s difficulties finding replacement counsel. Those facts concern different circumstances, yet they sit awkwardly together. The firm’s STARK announcement offers a further comparison about document retrieval. None requires secret recordings or an imaginary conspiracy beneath the conference room.
Most importantly, the public should distinguish the procedural outcome from the original allegation. Cepac obtained strike-out and costs. I continue to challenge that judgment. The recruitment dispute never received a full merits determination. That record gives TCAP plenty to examine without manufacturing a single additional fucking fact.
Mind The Gap, Daniel
So there it was: Business Protection, perched on Google slightly above the fucking problem. Daniel Rubin’s name appeared beneath the professional sales pitch. TCAP appeared close below, carrying its criticism and documentary analysis. The coincidence lasted only as long as that particular search arrangement, but its comic value was immediate.
The firm can promote its services, celebrate victories and praise its professional network. I can examine the judgments, correspondence and public claims that concern my litigation. Neither party owns the other one’s account. Yet Google’s cramped little arrangement offered a wonderfully simple picture of the relationship. Corporate reassurance upstairs; inconvenient public scrutiny directly underneath.
For one glorious moment, Horsfield Menzies had managed to protect its place in the search results by approximately one position. The umbrella remained aloft, the lawyers stood beneath it, and the documents were still waiting below. Mind the gap, Daniel. It’s full of documents.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Sources
- Horsfield Menzies – Business Protection
- Horsfield Menzies – Daniel Rubin, Partner
- Horsfield Menzies – High Court Victory For STARK UK, June 2026
- Employment Tribunal – Thompson v Cepac Limited And Page Outsourcing UK Limited, April 2026
- TCAP – Daniel Rubin : Recruitment Ethics Expire At The Client Door
- TCAP – Daniel Rubin : The Training Worked. That’s The Fucking Problem
- TCAP – Horsfield Menzies : Investigate The Reaction, Not The Complaint