George Clooney effects wreaks havoc on Doughty Street website

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George Clooney effect wreaks havoc on Doughty Street website
30 September 2014 | By Kate Beioley

Doughty Street Chambers has been forced to upgrade its website hosting arrangements to cope with a surge in traffic following the nuptials of member Amal Alamuddin and Hollywood star George Clooney.


The onslaught of hits resulting from the announcement of human rights barrister Alamuddin and actor Clooney’s engagement in April caused the website to crash and meant the set was forced to invest.

Chief executive Robin Jackson said the upgrade had ironed out any issues but added the site had experienced a huge influx of traffic since the engagement and wedding of the couple in Venice wedding at the weekend.

Doughty Street has been bombarded with press enquiries following Alamuddin’s engagement to Clooney earlier this year, with members influxed with calls and emails from national journalists.

The set was also door-stepped by the press last week, with a sea of camera crews descending on the public law chambers hoping for material about Alamuddin.

Jackson has been quoted in a raft of media outlets including Hello!, the Telegraph, the Guardian and Reuters. He is reported as saying: “She brings a bright light to everything she is involved in, and I am so delighted at her happy news.”

In April the Telegraph carried quotes from joint head of chambers, Geoffrey Robertson QC, who said: “Amal Alamuddin is a brilliant and passionate defender of human rights who has put in the enormously hard work necessary to improving them. She is respected and admired by all her colleagues.”

Alamuddin’s professional credentials involve cases representing the state of Cambodia and also Colonel Gaddafi’s former Libyan intelligence chief Abdallah Al Senussi. She also represented the former prime minister of Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and was an adviser to the King of Bahrain in connection with the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry.