On one side, a disabled litigant in person who loses emotional regulation under pressure and has a doctor’s letter to prove it. On the other, Cepac’s solicitors – paid, regulated, suited and booted and bald – who looked at that imbalance and, in my experience, chose to lean as hard as possible. This is not a misunderstanding. This is how they play the game.
Meet The Professional Hit Squad
Let us be clear about roles.
Me: disabled, on my own, litigant in person. My condition affects emotional regulation when I am stressed. That is not a vibe. It is medical evidence. When the heat goes up, my fuse shortens, my judgement bends, my wording gets jagged.
Them: a firm of solicitors representing Cepac. Salaries, supervision, indemnity insurance, ethics training, partners to sign off the drafts, juniors to sanitise the spelling. They know the rules. They write the rules. On a bad day they send the rules to the tribunal attached to an invoice.
They were fully aware that I am disabled and unrepresented. They still chose to correspond with me like I was a hostile corporation with an in-house legal team, rather than a single disabled person trying not to drown. That choice is the story here. Everything else is detail.
The Disabled Bloke On The Other Side
When a non-disabled lawyer snaps in a stressful case, someone calls it an off day. When I snap, it is a symptom.
- My condition attacks my regulation under pressure
- Litigation is nothing but pressure
- I am doing this without professional support
So yes, sometimes I have written things I should not have. I am not pretending to be a saint. I am not even pretending to be tidy. I am a disabled person backed into a corner by a company and its lawyers. A Senior Associate and a Partner double team vs disabled old me. Or Rubin stepping in like an attack dog after I just slapped his Senior Associate down in a way I’m not supposed it.
But here is the important bit.
My meltdowns are not calculated. I do not have team meetings about them. I do not log them to a time recording system and submit them as billable hours. Their letters are not meltdowns. They are products. Drafted, reviewed, approved products of a legal business.
They are sending me weapons with postage. I am sending them symptoms by email. It is not the same thing.
Costs Threats As A Blunt Instrument
One of the earliest moves from their side was the five figure threat. Not in a calm, end of case warning. Not as a neutral explanation of risk. As a club.
We will seek costs in excess of £20,000.
We might go higher.
We think you are being entirely unreasonable.
This is not gentle education of a litigant in person. It is the kind of thing you write when you want someone to feel the floor disappear under them.
They knew I was disabled. They knew I was unrepresented. They knew my regulation is fragile under stress. The honest reading is simple. They wanted me to panic. They wanted me to shut the claim down myself so they would not have to win it.
Professionals are not supposed to turn costs rules into a blunt psychological weapon against the most vulnerable person in the room. If you do it anyway, do not be surprised when people call it bullying.
Weaponising Disability-Driven Meltdowns
Here is the choreography as I experienced it.
- Fire off letters heavy with accusation, contempt and five figure threats
- Push for public hearings, maximum exposure, disclosure of intimate medical records
- Pretend my disability is a minor footnote, not the whole context
- Watch me crack under the strain
- Scoop up every sweary email and raw post
- Run to the tribunal waving them as proof of my terrible conduct
That is not simply “robust representation”. It is a feedback loop built on my disability.
They want it both ways. They want my outbursts to count against me as conduct, while their decision to squeeze a disabled person until he explodes is framed as neutral professionalism.
My reactions are disability-coloured. Their tactics are profit-coloured. Only one of those is being treated as a problem.
The Tone Of People Who Think They Cannot Be Touched
Read their letters through a human lens instead of a legal one.
The language is not just firm. It is sneering.
My arguments are “nonsense”.
My behaviour is “entirely unreasonable”.
My publications are waved around as if I am some freelance menace, while they posture as guardians of order.
The vibe is not professional disagreement. The vibe is bouncer on a power trip.
It is easy to talk like that when you have a team, insurance and a regulator you assume will nod your work through because you used the right form number. It is much harder to be the disabled person on the receiving end, reading yet another letter that takes aim at your sanity, your honesty and your finances.
If this is what they are comfortable sending to a disabled litigant in person on paper, imagine the smug off the record chat. Then consider this, I’m disabled, no assets – and can and will do and say anything I want about you. It’ll all be true of course, because by coincidence that is also the most damaging.
Playing The Victim While Holding The Gun
The part that really stinks is the role reversal.
- They send high pressure letters
- They fire off applications for strike out, public hearings, costs and disclosure all at once
- They throw their weight around on process and tone
Then, when my disability reacts as you would expect under that pressure, they plead to the tribunal that they are the ones who have been wronged by my conduct.
It is like being punched in the face and then watching the puncher complain to security that your nose bled on their shirt.
If they truly believed I was a fragile, unreasonable menace, they could have chosen to de-escalate. They could have dialled back the language, stopped rattling the costs sabre and engaged like human beings. Instead, they kept twisting the knife and then shrieked when I shouted.
The grown-ups in this story are not the people with the letterhead.
What “Professional” Ought To Mean
Being a solicitor representing a company against a disabled individual should come with a higher standard, not a lower one.
Professional should mean:
- noticing vulnerability and adjusting tone accordingly
- explaining risk, not brandishing it like a weapon
- resisting the temptation to convert every wobble from a disabled person into litigation gold
What I saw instead was a firm that, in my view, treated my disability as a tactical asset for their side. When it suited them, they wanted the meltdown. When it suited them, they wanted the diagnosis. When it suited them, they wanted the drama in front of a judge.
If this is the kind of conduct that sails happily under the SRA radar, then the system has its priorities upside down. It is hyper alert to the language of the disabled LIP having a bad night and conveniently blind to the industrial scale pressure campaign under a firm’s logo that helped create it.
Regulators And Tribunals, If You Are Awake
I am not asking anyone to pretend I have handled this perfectly. I have not.
I’m not demanding anything. The court’s failure to protect me has been nothing short of disgraceful, the conduct scrutiny one-sided.
On one side: a disabled litigant in person, medically confirmed emotional regulation problems, no legal training, no filter, sometimes losing it under sustained pressure.
On the other: a commercial company and its solicitors, every advantage, every resource, choosing tone, choosing timing, choosing to kick a vulnerable person as hard as the rules will allow and then acting offended when he reacts.
If one side is going to be painted as a conduct problem, the other side needs its own canvas. You cannot keep pretending that bullying with a practising certificate is just “strong advocacy” while every disability-driven misstep from the other side is a hanging offence.
If what they did is acceptable, say it plainly. Own it. Tell every disabled person contemplating a claim that this is the treatment they can expect from a company’s lawyers if they dare to stand up.
If it is not acceptable, then Cepac’s solicitors should be answering hard questions, not just firing them at me.
But beware because I’ve lost issue in the case in a way I would never lose interest in a grudge. And that isn’t a great position to be in.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project