Barrister claims he was blacklisted by law firm after tweeting about clubbing a fox

Jolyon Maugham says top law firm refused to give his old Chambers any work as long as he remained there

Barrister Jolyon Maugham QC, founder of the Good Law Project (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty)

A barrister has said he was blacklisted by a leading law firm after he tweeted about killing a fox with a baseball bat on Boxing Day 2019.

Jolyon Maugham, director of the Good Law Project, said that ‘Magic Circle’ law firm Allen & Overy refused to give him or other members of the Devereux Chambers any work as long as he was still among the roster of civil litigation barristers there.

Mr Maugham faced a flurry of criticism on social media after he tweeted about using a baseball club to kill a fox, which he said had become trapped when it tried to enter his henhouse.

He wrote on the social media site on Sunday: “Am remembering when Allen & Overy’s head of litigation told my old chambers that, so long as I was in chambers, not only would they not send any work to me, but they would not send any work to any other members of chambers either.”

When asked what led to the dispute, he said: “It was in the aftermath of my stupid tweet about killing a fox.

“They later withdrew the ban on sending work to my old Chambers - goodness alone knows how they thought they could square it with their duty to their own clients - but it remains one of the most shocking abuses of power by City blue bloods I have seen,” he added.

In 2019, the barrister was investigated by the RSPCA after he tweeted: “Already this morning I have killed a fox with a baseball bat. How’s your Boxing Day going?”

The animal welfare charity concluded after its investigation that a prosecution was not warranted. Mr Maugham later apologised for his tweet after receiving backlash, adding that his chickens “were very distressed by the fox”.

Mr Maugham was a member of Devereux Chambers until late last year, and served as a leading voice in the campaign for the UK to remain in the EU. During the course of the pandemic his organisation, The Good Law Project, has set out to take the government to task over its allocation of public funds.

It recently launched a legal challenge against the UK government over a contract awarded to Public First, a company run by associates of former Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings and the Cabinet Office minister, Michael Gove.

The non-profit organisation alleges that the contract was awarded to Public First nearly a year ago because that was what Mr Cummings, who was then chief adviser to the prime minister, had wanted.