Unprincipled ,unprofessional and potentially unlawful Devonshires Solicitors
My experience of Devonshires Solicitors reinforces many of the criticisms reflected in public reviews and employee feedback online. While the law firm presents itself as socially responsible and expert in housing law, I found its approach in disability-related disputes highly defensive, unprincipled, procedural, and overly aligned with protecting G15 and other social landlords from accountability, corporately psychopathic and deliberately cruel.
For more than seven years, Devonshires client , London & Quadrant housing trust ( L&Q) fiercely resisted providing a straightforward and entirely reasonable adjustment linked to my disabilities, which include schizophrenia, end-stage liver cirrhosis, and now terminal cancer. The adjustment was not extravagant or unreasonable. It primarily involved basic communication and procedural safeguards: no unannounced visits, clear written notice of appointments, weekday-only contact, and proper recording and sharing of these adjustments with staff and contractors so that I would not repeatedly face situations of managers and contractors just turning up unannounced on my doorstep demanding access and making legal threats without them giving me any opportunity to tidy up or plan for the visit or social interaction beforehand.
These reasonable adjustments were eventually acknowledged and agreed ,but only after L&Q thrratened to evict me, in a written settlement yet in practice they continued to be ignored, diluted, reframed, or treated as optional “preferences” under vague “vulnerability” or “service adjustment” - goodwill gesture- policies rather than recognised as enforceable Equality Act rights.
I was forced to take legal action against L&Q yet despite formal admissions, Ombudsman findings, and written settlement agreements, Devonshires appeared more focused on reputational management and limiting liability no matter what than ensuring meaningful compliance or organisational learning. Serious issues involving disability, mental health, liver disease, and terminal cancer and immonucompromised status were repeatedly handled in a detached and procedural manner that often seemed devoid of empathy or safeguarding awareness.
Particularly troubling was the continued use or attempted use of unannounced contractor visits even after case solicitor Shannon Morrison and Devonshires housing disputes lead and L&Q had been informed that I was immunocompromised and at serious risk of infection from unprepared for contact and stress. Rather than treating this as a serious health and safety and Equality Act matter, the concerns often appeared minimised or reframed operationally. Morrison ,a real corporate psychopath has stubbornly declined to acknowledge that I have terminal cancer and am immunocompromised and the health and safety risks and harm the continued unannounced visits posed.
Morrison and Devonshires refuse to explain what steps their client is prepared to take in compliance with the Equality Act to ensure the reasonable adjustment agreed years ago is now provided.
My criticism is not that Devonshires defended its client robustly — solicitors are entitled to do that — but that the firm acted in a unprincipled ,unpfofessional and likely unlawful way and appears too institutionally embedded within the culture and interests of large social landlords, regulators and even SRA, glaring conflicting interests , to provide the degree of independence, balance, and ethical reflection that cases involving disabled and vulnerable tenants require.
In sectors involving enormous power imbalance between landlord and tenant, law firms should not merely legitimise defensive institutional behaviour through technical language and procedural manoeuvring. They should also recognise when systems, policies, and organisational culture are causing ongoing harm to people whose legal rights and health depend on those protections being taken seriously. Devonshires has also represented L&Q and other G15 social landlords in high profile cases involving non compliance with the Equality Act and the preventable deaths of disabled tenants .