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David Hirst

Profile

David specialises in defamation, privacy and confidence, data protection, IP, and other media and entertainment related work and general common law.

David has undertaken a variety of work in the High Court and County Court and represented clients at mediations/ADR. David has acted for media organisations, companies and private individuals and pro bono in employment and criminal cases. David is public access accredited and can be instructed directly by members of the public and companies in suitable cases.

In the last 12 months David has acted in defamation claims for:

• a property advisor in a dispute with Express Newspapers resulting in a £35,000 payment and apology - St Clare v Express Newspapers

• a London based middle-eastern newspaper in a Reynolds defence

• an Iranian dissident journalist based in the UK sued for libel on a variety of internet and newspaper articles, an action in which an order for security for costs for £275,000 was made - Kahangi & Ors v Nourizadeh

• a distance learning company suing the search engine Google for defamatory republications, a case which established the liability of search engines for defamatory content in searches - Metropolitan International Schools Ltd v Designtechnica Corp

• a public sector employee sued over a witness statement

• an MP (in which a civil restraint order was obtained against a persistently vexatious litigant in person)

• a market research company bringing a claim against the industry regulator

• an IT company in a dispute over confidential customer information

• a TV lie detection expert

• large numbers of libel actions brought in relation to emails, internet webpage and forum postings

And bringing and resisting injunctions in privacy and harassment for well-known figures and private individuals.

Since 2005 he has provided pre-publication advice to The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent and The Sunday Times, principally around libel, privacy, contempt and reporting restrictions. David regularly advises a number of independent tv production companies and film-makers on pre and post broadcast legal and compliance issues, NGOs and charitable organisations on the publication of investigative reports, major publishing houses, magazines and specialist web-only publishers. He also has experience of advising various trade unions and other public sector employees on their liabilities in defamation, data protection and privacy.

David has also conducted media law training and awareness seminars with charities, campaign groups and media organisations.

David trained at 5RB, and during and since pupillage, David has gained substantial experience of all Chambers' areas of practice.

In 2007 David spent 6 months on secondment from 5RB in the media litigation team at Reynolds Porter Chamberlain LLP.

David was an outgoing Pegasus Scholar in 2008 attached to leading US media law firms Hogan & Hartson LLPin New York and Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz in Washington DC.

Before coming to the bar David spent a year working at the Serious Organised Crima Agency on the legal aspects of Hi-tech crime and completing research on the news media during the Second World War.

Career

Cases

Defamation

Media Law

News

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