Jo Maugham QC claims Allen & Overy blacklisted him and his chambers
Tax barrister says ‘ban’ came in ‘aftermath’ of fox killing tweet

Jolyon Maugham QC has claimed he and his chambers were blacklisted by a magic circle law firm.
Addressing his some 260,000 followers on Twitter on Sunday, Maugham alleged that the head of litigation at Allen & Overy had contacted Devereux Chambers to inform it 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 member of Chambers either”.
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 member of Chambers either.
— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) February 14, 2021
Maugham added that the “ban” came in the “aftermath” of a “stupid tweet” on Boxing Day 2019 in which he revealed he had “killed a fox with a baseball bat” while hungover and wearing his wife’s kimono. The fox had been caught in protective netting around a chicken coop in the garden of Maugham’s London home.
In two further posts over the weekend, the barrister claimed the magic circle law firm “later withdrew the ban” and that he subsequently “offered to keep the matter confidential if they tendered a private apology”. They “refused” this offer, according to Maugham.
Maugham, a prolific tweeter who became a leading anti-Brexit voice, was until recently a member of Devereux Chambers, a London set which covers a range of specialisms including commercial litigation, insurance and tax. He left the chambers late last year.
A&O and Devereux declined to comment. Maugham didn’t respond to our request for comment.
21 Comments
Anon
I’ve heard he’s now accepting instructions from Fox & Killiams LLP
Interested observer
Is this the Good Law Project burning its ships, Cortés-style, or a tax lawyer having a mid-life crisis?
fdfd
Yes.
the legal press is running out of ideas
why do we care
like seriously this is meta-drama from old drama that wasn’t that funny first time round
also that fox should’ve been clobbered piece of shit animal
Iknowtheboss
Can you let me know which firm or chambers you are with so I can withhold instructions for as long as you are engaged there?
lol what is even going on in the world
Ironic that a virtue-signalling lawyer got cancelled by an even more virtue-signalling lawyer. Methinks that A&O 1 some bloke on Twitter 0.
Hackaforte
Please, Legal Cheek, stop encouraging the wretched man…
Franklin Price
The unspeakable in pursuit of the Untaxable ?
Nope, You Aren’t A Victim
God, if it had been a GDL student who willingly tweeted about killing a fox with a baseball bat, you can bet A&O may have thought twice about offering a TC. Same with chambers.
Incredible that Jolyolloyoloyon thinks he ought to be beyond judgement for his actions.
Bert the Chirpy Chimney Sweep
🎵Ooooooooh….
It’s a jorly horliday with Jolyon…
Pretending that ‘eez workin’ class…
He says that he’s pretty ordi-nary…
But really he is up his own ARSE🎵
Critical Thonker
Joly-boy didn’t like your comment.
James West
I work at A&O and we kill a lot more foxes when we do deals than Jolyon. He’s just jealous.
Bob
The only worthwhile thing he ever did was kill a fox
A finger to cancel culture
Here we go. Another bunch of triggered snowflakes.
Hackaforte
Here we go. A flurry of tired buzzwords. It ain’t 2017 anymore, chum.
Poma
Either he should have revealed this at the time, or not at all.
Leaving chambers, and then dishing dirt is not cricket.
Pop pop pop
Shots fired! Shots fired! Wonder if the other side will return fi–
oh wait A&O didn’t care enough to comment
Someone needs to take the Twitters and the Facebook away from uncle Jo, he’s clearly not handling them well.
Bored from Tunbridge Wells
Booooorrrrrriiiinnngggggg.
Seriously, who cares?
GT
Wearing his wife’s kimono he battered a fox to death with a baseball bat. Not civilised is it? Well done A & O.
Anonymous
There’s no such thing as Bad woke publicity!
Remember Allen & O'Melveny?
This is the kind of hard-hitting journalism and inside access material we have come to expect from LC. Loving your work, old sport.