In the first high profile client defection from KRW Law to the new law firm established by former KRW employees, the family of slain Co Louth forestry worker Seamus Ludlow have announced that they are hiring the new company to represent the family’s interests.
Ludlow family spokesman, Michael Donegan made the announcement on Facebook, saying that the new firm’s representative Gavin Booth would henceforth be the family solicitor:
As there have been no different views regarding our future legal representation, and since the general consensus within the Ludlow family has been that we should stay with Gavin Booth (seen here some time ago with Thomas Fox), it is now my duty to confirm that Gavin Booth will be our solicitor from this day forward.
It is understood that Mr Booth now works for the KRW rival.
Seamus Ludlow (47) was found shot to death in a country lane not far from his home near Dundalk, Co Louth in May 1976, sparking decades of speculation about who was responsible.
Suspects ranged from members of the British SAS to the IRA but in 1998 this reporter was able to disclose in The Sunday Tribune that his killers were a group of UDR soldiers and Red Hand Commandos (RHC), a particularly violent Loyalist group, who had wandered across the Border after a day’s drinking in search of an IRA leader to kill.
Unable to find him they came across Seamus Ludlow making his way home from a local bar, offered him a lift and then took him to the laneway where he was shot dead. His body was then thrown over a hedge. The killer, nicknamed ‘Mambo’ was a notorious RHC gunman.
The source for this account was a Comber, Co. Down man, Paul Hosking who had gone on the trip that day not realising how it would end. He told this reporter that in 1987 he had given a full account of that night’s tragedy to the RUC who had done nothing about it.
Equally, the family have accused the Irish police, an Garda Siochana of a smear campaign by erroneously blaming the local IRA for killing Ludlow, alleging he had been an informer.
The family are not alone in suspecting that the two police forces were trying to deflect attention away from the Red Hand Commando gunman because he was an agent of a branch of British intelligence.
The family say they were given promises of a commission of inquiry in the Garda investigation of the Ludlow murder but in November last year the Dublin High Court ruled against their bid to force the government to establish the inquiry.
Their legal efforts are continuing, now led not by KRW but by their new rivals.
The Broken Elbow 
Ed: Very interesting article. But you are drifting over into a gossip column with your talk of a “rival” and “defection”. It is very common for lawyers to make new business arrangements. When I started out it was common for a young lawyer to plan for an entire career with the same firm or government agency. No longer is that true. Your efforts to create an issue where none exists is unpersuasive. Stick to what you know best, government corruption and collusion and hypocrisy in high places. Ed Sent from my iPhone Edmund Lynch 973 477-3081
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You’re so right ed. I had entirely forgotten how saintly lawyers are……