Legal Women, August, 2023. by Maroulla Paul
“Back then, in 1998, I was naive and I believed completely in the fairness of the legal system.I was, therefore, shocked, devastated and totally broken when I realised I had no access to justice, even as a white, privileged, middle class, well connected woman. The issue was how the lawyers behaved and presented the situation to myself. Whilst in the ‘damages agreement’ as it was described, rather than an NDA, we managed to put in clauses restricting Weinstein’s future behaviour, in essence it was not worth the paper it was written on. He simply carried on.
"The agreement said we should use our best endeavours not to aid the police, that we had to get any therapist we chose to talk to to sign a separate confidentiality agreement, that the HMRC had to consult with Weinstein’s lawyers to discuss the settlement monies, that I could not even have a copy of the agreement. All of this is clearly unethical legal behaviour yet it is not contravening SRA guidance per se.”
. . .
“Lawyers need help to understand the ethical guidelines and the fact they should not be allowing perfectly legal tools like NDAs to be weaponised and used in an unethical manner”.
-- Zelda Perkins (as quoted by Maroulla Paul)
https://issuu.com/benham/docs/1941_legal_women_august_2023_new (go to pp 14-15)
