Hear Law Trademark Notice: Sent From a Website Registered the Night Before

A client forwarded us an email this morning. It was headed “Formal Notice Regarding Potential Business Name Rights”, it cited four sections of the Trade Marks Act 1994, it was signed by a “Registered IP Solicitor” at Hear Law, and it gave them 72 hours to respond about a trademark application for their own company name. They told us Hear Law appeared to be a genuine firm.

It is. Hear Law Ltd is a real law firm, authorised by the Solicitors Regulation Authority twelve days before this email was sent. But the website the email points to was registered the evening before it arrived, the solicitor who signed it is not listed at the firm, and the letter is the same one, word for word, that we have now seen sent in the names of two other newly authorised law firms.

Is Hear Law a real law firm?

Yes. Hear Law Ltd is on the SRA register as a recognised body, authorised on 2 October 2026. “Hear Law” is its registered trading name. Its SRA record links it to a company that Companies House shows was incorporated in August 2021 and took the name Hear Law Ltd in May 2026. It has no published regulatory decisions.

The firm’s SRA record lists no website, email address or phone number.

We have found no public statement from Hear Law Ltd about this email.

What did the notice say?

It told our client their company name was going through “pre-filing due diligence and verification procedures”, cited sections 5, 5(4)(a) and 38 of the Trade Marks Act 1994 and the Trade Marks Rules 2008, said trademarks go to whoever files first, and asked for a reply within 72 hours. It was signed:

Cassandra Alicia Raman, Registered IP Solicitor, 46 Wood End Green Road, Hayes, UB3 2SJ, England. SRA: 531929. Phone: +44 2039966093. Website: https://hearlaw.co.uk/

The full email, redacted, is at the foot of this page.

Why does it look so convincing?

Because some of the details are real. Hear Law is the firm’s genuine name and trading name. 46 Wood End Green Road, Hayes is the company’s genuine registered office at Companies House. The phone number is an 020 London number, which fits a Hayes address. Anyone checking the name and address against Companies House would find they match.

That is the method. The details you would naturally check first are accurate, because they were taken from public records. What gives it away is everything else.

What do the registers show?

The website was less than a day old. hearlaw.co.uk was registered at 7.16pm on 13 October 2026. The notice reached our client at 11.05am the next morning. A free WHOIS lookup shows the date to anyone who checks.

The signatory is not at the firm. The SRA register lists one regulated person at Hear Law Ltd, and it is not Cassandra Alicia Raman. Companies House lists one officer, and it is not her either.

The SRA number is not the firm’s. The notice quotes 531929. That is the personal SRA number of a solicitor called Cassandra Alicia Raman, admitted in 2014, who holds a current practising certificate and has no published decisions. Under “where this person works”, her record says: “There are currently no practices displayed for this person. This may be because they are not practising or because our policy is not to publish their contact details.” The register does not link her to Hear Law Ltd, and it neither confirms nor rules out any connection with this email. We think her name and number have been used in the same way as the firm’s name, as real solicitors’ were in the RSK Legal and Fenrick & Stone notices, and we make no suggestion that she had anything to do with it.

The address is not the one on the firm’s SRA record. The notice and the website give the company’s registered office from Companies House. The firm’s SRA record gives a different head office.

This website is not on the firm’s SRA record. The record lists no website at all.

The website says it is not a law firm. Hear Law Ltd is an SRA-authorised law firm. The terms and conditions on hearlaw.co.uk say: “We are not a law firm.” They go on to describe the business as “a technology platform that helps create forms”, while the same terms say every package includes “a solicitor on file”, and the email is signed by a “Registered IP Solicitor”.

The numbers are impossible. The About page claims “2.5 million+ Trademarks granted”, “2 million+ Consultations” and a “96% Success Rate”, from a firm authorised in October 2026 on a website registered the night before. For scale, our own record is 4,176 UK trademarks registered between 2008 and 2026.

The guarantee contradicts the terms. The top package promises a “100% Approval Guarantee”. The terms say: “We, however, cannot guarantee that your mark will make it through and be approved even if you use our search services.”

The template shows through. The About page says “At , we are a team of dedicated trademark professionals”, with the firm’s name missing. The privacy policy refers to “Legal Trademark”. The footer says © 2025, on a domain registered in October 2026.

Nobody is named, and nothing is numbered. No SRA number, no company number, no VAT number, no solicitor, no director, anywhere on the site.

The email came from a subdomain the site never mentions. The site publishes info@hearlaw.co.uk. The notice came from cassandra@notice.hearlaw.co.uk, which runs its email through a different provider from the rest of the domain.

Nothing on the trademark register supports the deadline. Nobody else has filed for our client’s name. An application not yet filed would not show, so that proves nothing on its own, but nothing corroborates the clock the notice started.

Three firms, one letter

This is the fourth copy of this notice we have seen in a little over three weeks, sent in the names of three different law firms.

Behind the table:

• The letter. Same subject line, same “pre-filing due diligence and verification procedures”, same four statutory references, same 72-hour deadline, same “Registered IP Solicitor” title.
• The target. Each borrows the name of a real firm recently authorised by the SRA, with no website listed on its SRA record.
• The solicitor. Each is signed in the name of a real solicitor and quotes that solicitor’s personal SRA number, not the firm’s own number. In no case does the register link the solicitor to the firm.
• The domain. Each .co.uk was registered through the same registrar, Dynadot, on Namecheap shared hosting.
• The sending address. Each notice came from a subdomain that appears nowhere on its website, and each of those subdomains routes its email through Hostinger rather than the main domain’s provider.
• The prices. The Hear Law site sells three packages at £199, £299 and £449, the same three prices as the RSK Legal site, and both promise a “100% Approval” guarantee on the top package.
• The claims. Each site claims experience or volumes the firm behind the name cannot have.

Fenrick & Stone Limited has said publicly that it did not create the website or send the emails, and has reported it to the SRA. We think the same people sent all four letters, that they look for law firms that have just been authorised and have not yet built a web presence of their own, and that Hear Law Ltd’s name has been used in the same way. The gap is also getting shorter: thirteen days for RSK Legal, under a day for Hear Law.

What does the notice get wrong about the law?

There is no pre-filing verification process at the UKIPO, and nothing obliges an applicant or their adviser to write to anyone before filing. Section 38 is about publication and the opposition window after it. Sections 5 and 5(4)(a) are relative grounds, raised by the owner of an earlier right after publication, not by a new applicant’s agent beforehand. The Trade Marks Rules 2008 contain no 72-hour anything.

The first-to-file line is the giveaway. The UK register does broadly reward the first to file, but section 5(4)(a) exists precisely so that an earlier user of an unregistered name can oppose a later application, or have it invalidated, on passing-off grounds. The notice cites the very section that protects the person receiving it.

If somebody really does file for your name, you find out when it publishes in the Trade Marks Journal, and you then have two months to oppose. Nobody has to email you first.

Have we contacted the firm?

We have contacted Hear Law Ltd to let the firm know what we found. Its SRA record lists no website, email address or phone number. If Hear Law Ltd, or anyone named here, would like to respond, we will publish the response in full.

What does this mean for a new law firm?

Think about the route. The degree, the training, the qualification, years in practice, then the application to the SRA to run your own firm. You are authorised. A week and a half later, somebody registers a domain in your firm’s name, builds a website around your real company address, and starts sending pressure letters to strangers the next morning. The first you hear of it is when one of them checks.

Your reputation is the whole asset, and it is being spent before you have earned a penny from it. A public warning on your own website and a report to the SRA are the right first steps. What makes the next step faster is a registered trademark.

Nominet’s Dispute Resolution Service does not strictly require one: a complainant has to show Rights in the name and that the domain is an Abusive Registration, and Rights can include unregistered rights built up through use. But those have to be proved with evidence of trading, reputation and goodwill, and a firm authorised twelve days ago has almost none. A registration is proof you simply hand over. Free mediation runs first, a summary decision costs £200, and the process takes roughly eight to twelve weeks. The newer the business, the more the registration is doing.

Is AI making these harder to spot?

Yes. A credible professional website used to take time and money. Now it can be built overnight, and this one was. Polish is no longer a signal.

What still gives them away is the practice behind them: millions of trademarks granted by a firm authorised twelve days ago, terms that say “we are not a law firm” on the website of a law firm, a signatory who is not on the firm’s list, a registration number that is not the firm’s. Check what a site says about itself, and whether any of it holds up.

How do you spot your own name being used like this?

Nothing checks, when a domain is registered, whether the buyer has any right to the name. The first a business usually hears is when a customer forwards something and asks whether it is really them. That is why TMH Monitoring covers domain registrations and social media accounts as well as the trademark registers. A trademark watch tells you about applications; it does not tell you about a domain registered on a Tuesday evening and emailing strangers on Wednesday morning.

What to look out for

• A deadline in hours. Trademark law does not work in 72-hour windows.
• A competing applicant who is never named. A real application has a number and an owner. Ask for them.
• An SRA number. Thirty seconds on the SRA register. Does it return a firm or a person? Is that person listed at the firm on the letter?
• The firm’s own record. Search the SRA register for the firm by name rather than following the link in the email. Does its record list the website the email came from?
• How old the website is. A free WHOIS lookup shows when a domain was registered. This one was registered the night before.
• A correct address. It proves nothing. Registered addresses are public, and this one was accurate.

The same pattern runs through our warnings on Fenrick & Stone, RSK Legal, St Nic’s Legal Services, Knighton Legal Services, MA & Co Law and Alethea Law. Our guide on how to spot trademark scams before they cost you covers it in full, and the complete directory is at trademark scams.

What to do if you have had one

• Don’t reply to the deadline. Nothing happens at hour 73.
• Send it to us. Call 0800 077 8830 or forward it, and we will tell you what the registers show. No charge, no obligation.
• Report it. The IPO publishes guidance on misleading trademark payment requests and collects these at misleadinginvoices@ipo.gov.uk. If money has changed hands, contact Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040. If a law firm’s name or a solicitor’s number has been used, tell the SRA.
• Stop the letters arriving. Our Care of Address service puts our address on your trademark record instead of yours.

The email in full

Reproduced as it arrived. Our client’s name, email address and company name are redacted; everything else, including capitalisation and spacing, is exactly as sent.

From: Cassandra Alicia Raman <cassandra@notice.hearlaw.co.uk>
Sent: Wednesday 14 October 2026, 11:05
To: [CLIENT NAME REDACTED]
Subject: Formal Notice Regarding Potential Business Name Rights

Hello [CLIENT NAME REDACTED],

This correspondence constitutes a formal verification notice issued by the Trademark Division of Hear Law in relation to a proposed trademark application for the mark “[CLIENT BRAND]“, which is presently undergoing our pre-filing due diligence and verification procedures prior to any formal submission to the UK Intellectual Property Office (“UKIPO”).

The proposed application remains under internal review and has not yet been submitted to the UKIPO. In accordance with our pre-filing due diligence obligations, and having regard to the Trade Marks Act 1994, including, where relevant, Sections 5, 5(4)(a) and 38, together with the Trade Marks Rules 2008, we are required to make reasonable enquiries to determine whether any earlier rights or competing commercial interests exist which may be material before our verification process is concluded.

Our enquiries indicate that you may have used, or may presently be using, the name “[CLIENT BRAND]” in the course of trade. We are therefore writing to provide you with an opportunity to clarify your position before the proposed application progresses further.

Our review specifically concerns:

• Potential prior use in the course of trade capable of giving rise to enforceable rights under Section 5(4)(a) of the Trade Marks Act 1994; and
• Any grounds which may be relevant under Section 5, including unregistered rights, trade names, goodwill, or other earlier interests.

Accordingly, we request that you confirm, within 72 hours of receipt of this notice, whether:

• You or your organisation have used, or are presently using, the name “[CLIENT BRAND]” within the United Kingdom; and/or
• You assert any legal, commercial, equitable or other protectable interest in that name.

If you consider that the proposed application conflicts with any earlier rights held by you, we invite you to provide a written response together with any supporting evidence you wish us to take into account before our verification process is concluded.

Please note:

• This notice forms part of our pre-filing verification process and is intended to ensure that any apparent prior user has the opportunity to clarify their position before the proposed application progresses.
• In the absence of a response within the above timeframe, our verification process will be concluded on the basis of the information available to us at that time.
• If no competing rights are identified during that process, the proposed application may proceed in accordance with the instructions received.
• Once an application has been filed, any issues relating to earlier rights may need to be addressed through the procedures provided under the Trade Marks Act 1994 and the applicable UKIPO process.

You may also wish to note that the UK trade mark system generally operates on a first-to-file basis, subject to any earlier rights recognised under the Trade Marks Act 1994. Accordingly, if you are actively trading under the name and wish to formalise or protect any rights you consider you have acquired through prior use, you should notify us within the above timeframe so that your position may be taken into account before our verification process is concluded.

For compliance, audit and evidential purposes, all communications relating to this matter should be made in writing.

This matter is presently under verification. We should therefore be grateful to receive your response within the stated timeframe to enable the verification process to be concluded before the proposed application progresses further.

Yours Faithfully,

Cassandra Alicia Raman
Registered IP Solicitor
46 Wood End Green Road, Hayes, UB3 2SJ England
SRA: 531929
Phone : +44 2039966093
Website: https://hearlaw.co.uk/

Have you had one of these?

We build these pages from what clients forward to us. If something like this has landed in your inbox, send it over, redact whatever you like, and we will look into it properly.

Questions about this

Did Hear Law send trademark notices about business names?

We cannot say who sent them. Hear Law Ltd is a genuine law firm on the SRA register, authorised in October 2026, and its SRA record lists no website. The notice came from hearlaw.co.uk, a domain registered the evening before, and was signed by a solicitor the register does not list at the firm, using her personal SRA number. The website’s own terms say it is not a law firm. The same letter has been sent in the names of two other newly authorised firms, one of which has said publicly that it did not send it.

Answered by Jonathan Paton, Founder & CEO

How can I check whether a solicitor’s letter about my trademark is genuine?

Start with the SRA register. Check that the SRA number quoted belongs to the firm rather than to an individual, that the person signing is listed as working there, and whether the firm’s record lists the website or email address used. Companies House shows the firm’s officers. A very recently registered website, or claims of experience that do not fit the firm’s history, are reasons to pause. Real addresses alone prove little, because they can be copied from public records.

Answered by Jonathan Paton, Founder & CEO

What should I do if I receive a notice giving me 72 hours to respond about my trademark?

Do not pay, share confidential information or reply in a hurry. A short deadline is designed to create pressure, and a genuine process allows time for checks. Verify the sender independently through the SRA register and Companies House, and check the trademark register for anything filed against your name, bearing in mind an application not yet filed would not appear. If you have a representative, forward the notice to them first.

Answered by Jonathan Paton, Founder & CEO

Written by

Jonathan Paton

Founder & CEO

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