Lawyer Monthly Magazine - August 2019 Edition

Social media can make or break your career. What can people do to protect themselves against the media? From phone hacking to inaccurate news headlines, we speak to Daniel Taylor about the prevalent issues regarding privacy and defamation. Daniel has represented household names in their actions against the media, including actors, TV presenters and sportsmen and has many years of experience in dealing with pre-publication issues and the law of contempt, having been involved in copy clearance in relation to ground breaking and agenda setting stories. A Day in the Life of Daniel Taylor Daniel Taylor An Interview With... Prevalent Issues with Privacy and Defamation responsible for the death of the child. By questioning everything we managed to obtain an apology, an undertaking not to repeat and also damages for her in a long battle where the tabloid had maintained throughout it would not say sorry. As the story unfolded, far from being negligent, she had intervened fearlessly to protect the child but had been overruled. In sensitive cases such as the Baby P case, how do you support clients during what will be one of the most stressful times of their life? Litigation can indeed very stressful and it is always important to reassure clients that one day the ordeal of litigation will come to an end, hopefully sometimes quicker than you or the client thinks. Also, one should never underestimate the difficulties the other side are facing. One useful tactic is to write down at the inception of a case what it is you are trying to achieve for the particular client. What started your journey into law? I was contemplating a career in science or the law, but soon decided that I did not want to be in a lab all day! When you first qualified as a lawyer, what took you by surprise? How binary litigation can be in our court system. You either win or lose and there is nothing in the middle, even when the case calls for a more nuanced approach. What would you say is the biggest lesson you have learnt over the years? You can never be sure how a case is going to develop and there are often surprises, sometimes good sometimes bad. And to question everything. Can you share an example to how questioning everything worked to your advantage? I acted for the social worker in the Baby P case in clearing her name in relation to the false allegations in the Sun newspaper that she was 36 WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM | AUG 2019 My Legal Life By Daniel Taylor, Taylor Hampton