ASA Adjudication on FWA (Scotland) Ltd

Ad

An ad, for Frasia Wright Associates, in a Scottish legal journal stated “Over 10 years as Scotland’s only specialist recruitment company dedicated to the placement of lawyers”.

Issue

G2 Legal LLP objected that the claim "Scotlands only specialist recruitment company dedicated to the placement of lawyers" was misleading, because they themselves had an office in Glasgow and specialised in placing lawyers, and there were a number of similar companies advertising in the journal.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Frasia Wright Associates (FWA) confirmed that they were a specialist recruitment agency based in Scotland, and said they could be regarded as a niche agency because they recruited only qualified lawyers.  They said they did not recruit legal support staff or any staff who might be required to fill non-lawyer positions within legal firms or the legal departments of other organisations.  They argued that that information was clear from their website.  They said G2 Legal LLP (G2) was, according to its website, a "privately owned legal recruitment company that is solely involved in placing candidates with experience in the legal marketplace".  They added that G2's website showed they recruited not only qualified lawyers but also all manner of legal support staff, ranging from legal cashiers to legal secretaries, office managers and personnel managers.  They said it was doubtful that lawyers were recruited to those support positions and that G2 therefore specialised in legal recruitment in the very broadest sense.

FWA conceded that G2 had offices in Scotland, as did most of the recruitment agencies that advertised vacancies for lawyers in the journal.  They said some of those agencies had offices across the UK and internationally, and some worked only in legal recruitment but, as in the case of G2, recruited support staff as well as lawyers.   They maintained that there were no recruitment companies that recruited only lawyers and none based in Scotland that were involved solely in the recruitment of lawyers.

FWA said the byline "Over 10 years as Scotland's only specialist recruitment company dedicated to the placement of lawyers" had been carefully and thoughtfully constructed to ensure that it clearly and precisely differentiated FWA from competitors in lawyer recruitment.  They argued that the byline should be read in its entirety, and that the use of the word "dedicated" was important.  Although they believed the complaint was not valid, FWA said they would consider further qualifying the byline to "Scotland's only specialist recruitment company dedicated exclusively to the placement of lawyers."

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted several companies with offices in Scotland specialised in legal recruitment.  We also noted, however, FWAs argument that they were unique in recruiting only qualified lawyers.  We considered that readers of a legal journal would understand from the claim "dedicated to the placement of lawyers" that FWA placed qualified lawyers, and that they would not necessarily assume that support staff and other non-lawyer personnel working in the legal profession were included.  We also considered that the term "dedicated" would be seen as differentiating FWAs specialist approach from their competitors in the wider field of general legal recruitment.  We concluded that the claim was unlikely to mislead.

We investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action was necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)