Timothy Dutton QC and Harriet Jones-Fenleigh acted for the SRA in the successful prosecution of a partner and a former partner at Davenport Lyons for six breaches of the Solicitors’ Code of Conduct 2007. The breaches concern the solicitors’ conduct between 2006 and 2009, during which they sent letters of claim to over 6,000 individuals whom they alleged to have used peer-to-peer filesharing networks to share copyright material belonging to six of the firm’s clients in breach of the Copyright Designs and Patent Act 1988. The SDT found, amongst other things, that the Respondents allowed their independence to be compromised, did not act in the best interests of their clients, and that their “overbearing, misleading and disproportionate” letters had significantly undermined the trust the public places in the legal profession. Both were suspended from practice for 3 months, fined £20,000 and ordered to pay the SRA’s costs. The order was suspended for 21 days to allow time for an appeal.