In September last year, Jolyon Maugham KC and his (Not Very) Good Law Project announced, in an email to supporters, that they will no longer be bringing legal challenges on transgender-related issues, as

It’s getting harder and harder to win rights for the trans community through the courts, and it doesn’t seem right to keep asking the community and its allies to carry on contributing to the enormous costs of this increasingly difficult litigation.

This followed the new Labour health secretary, Wes Streeting, handing Jolyon his arse on a plate in the High Court in July, when Jolyon tried and failed to challenge a legal ban on the private prescription of puberty blockers to trans-identifying children.

However, on 20 March the GLP launched a new, crowdfunded legal action, in support of a young, trans-identifying woman seeking to assert her ‘transgender rights’. And – surprise! – the trans community and its allies have been asked to contribute to the cost of this difficult litigation.

Headlined “Stop Trump exporting bigotry and hate”, and with an initial target of £30,000, the crowdfunder is in support of legal action in the High Court against the London office of the major US law firm Morrison Foerster, on behalf of a young, trans-identifying woman, referred to only by the cipher ‘RJW’ in the pre-action protocol letter before claim sent by law firm Brett Wilson LLP on behalf of the GLP and RJW on 19 March.

The GLP allege that Morrison Foerster discriminated against RJW by initially agreeing to act for her in seeking to assert her transgender rights, but later declining to do so “because, we believe, [the law firm] feared the consequences of acting in a case about protecting trans people”.

Literally nothing like this has happened since Germany in the 1930s. Well, apart from that time in Covent Garden in 1982 when a wine bar refused to serve me and my mates.

Brett Wilson’s letter before claim states that RJW and the GLP seek “a declaration from the Court that they were unfairly discriminated against (GLP has standing because it is connected/associated to RJW), and an injunction prohibiting [Morrison Foerster] from discriminating against transgender people in a similar manner in the future”, as well as financial compensation for “the distress/injury to feelings [RJW] has suffered” and aggravated damages “because Morrison Foerster’s discrimination was a deliberate and calculated act and an affront to UK equality legislation”, plus legal costs.

However, the connection or association between RJW and the GLP is not explained (six of the ten ‘facts of the case’ are redacted from the published letter before claim, and the crowdfunder text does not mention any such connection or association).

Alongside this crowdfunded legal action is a wider GLP campaign, headlined “Stop Trump’s assault on justice in the UK”. Supporters are urged to “sign our petition”, but this ‘petition‘ does not mention Morrison Foerster or the case of RJW, and serves no evident purpose other than the harvesting of the name, email address and phone number of people from whom the GLP can then solicit a donation.

From 20 March onwards, the crowdfunder was heavily promoted by Maugham and the GLP, on social media and in an email to supporters that managed to mention Donald Trump six times in just ten short sentences. And, within less than 24 hours, it had raised more than £11,000 from almost 700 donors. In a video posted on Instagram, Bluesky and X/Twitter, Eliza Pitkin, a GLP communications officer, explicitly alleged that the London office of Morrison Foerster “dropped a trans person’s case after their US parent company had a lot of pressure from Trump”.

Despite this heavy promotion, by the morning of 10 April, the crowdfunder had been flatlining at just over £15,000, from some 850 donors, for ten days. Then, further promotion of the crowdfunder – presumably by email, as there was no evident promotion on social media at that time – generated a second wave of more than 450 donations, taking the total to more than £21,500.

However, the GLP has not updated the crowdfunder text to indicate whether or not it has received Morrison Foerster’s response to Brett Wilson’s letter before claim, due by 4.00pm on 2 April. So, in addition to not being informed of the connection or association between RJW and the GLP, and why it is necessary to conceal the identity of RJW, potential donors to the crowdfunder have not been informed of – let alone had sight of – Morrison Foerster’s response to the GLP’s vague and highly speculative allegation of deliberate discrimination induced by Donald Trump. Yet there are many other possible (and entirely lawful) reasons why Morrison Foerster might have withdrawn the initial offer to act for RJW (if indeed that is what happened).

In short, the some 1,300 donors to the crowdfunder have not been provided with the material information that they need to make an informed decision about whether to donate and, if so, how much.

This is a clear breach of Rule 3.3 of the Non-Broadcast Code of Advertising Practice (the CAP Code) produced by the Committee of Advertising Practice, the sibling organisation of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). This provides that:

Marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information. They must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner.

Material information is information that the consumer needs to make informed decisions in relation to a product.

The Committee of Advertising Practice has stated explicitly that “individuals or companies seeking donations should be aware that claims made on their pages on crowdfunding websites constitute advertising and are subject to the [CAP] Code.”

Accordingly, I have submitted a complaint about the crowdfunder to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA ref: A25-1287392). I also believe that Brett Wilson LLP’s involvement in – and financial benefit from – this evidently misleading solicitation of significant funds may breach the firm’s regulatory obligations, so have submitted a complaint to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Needless to say, I won’t be holding my breath. But if I was one of the regulators, I would be asking the following questions:

What is the connection or association between Jolyon Maugham KC/the Good Law Project and RJW, and why has it been concealed from potential donors to the crowdfunder? Is it a purely professional connection or association, or is it (also) a personal/familial one? Brett Wilson’s letter before claim of 19 March states (on page 4):

Given the underlying subject matter and [redacted], in the event that it is necessary to issue proceedings RJW will be applying for an order (a) dispensing with the requirement for his name and address to be included on the Claim Form (b) allowing a cipher (e.g. RJW) to be used to refer to him on documents in the proceedings and (c) preventing the reporting of information that could identify RJW.

Why is this anonymity considered necessary? Why is RJW not funding the litigation themselves?

Why did the GLP launch the crowdfunder just 24 hours after Brett Wilson had sent the letter before claim, without waiting to see Morrison Foerster’s response to the allegation set out in the letter before claim?

Has Morrison Foerster responded to Brett Wilson’s letter before claim? If so, when was that response received by Brett Wilson and the GLP, and why has the material information of the nature and content of that response not been shared with potential donors in an update to the crowdfunder?

Alternatively, if Morrison Foerster has not yet responded to Brett Wilson’s letter before claim – the deadline was 2 April – why has that material information not been shared with potential donors in an update to the crowdfunder?