Playing the Pied Piper
Date: 11 July 2008
Authors: Geoffrey Bindman
Issue: Vol 158, Issue 7329
Categories: Opinion
Uttoxeter. This was the small market town in Staffordshire to which I made my first journey on behalf of the firm. Rather a disappointment: I expected a Roman fort but there was no sign of its early history.
Fresh out of university, I had taken my first step in the legal profession by becoming an articled clerk in Chancery Lane. I had two law degrees but little idea what lawyers actually did all day in their offices. Students don't have clients and the cases they study are invented or long concluded.
I had read law at university by default. At school I'd enjoyed the classical languages and history but I couldn't see how they could lead to a satisfying career. The cut and thrust of the law courts had a certain glamour, and with some family encouragement, I settled for that.
When it came to choosing between the Bar and the solicitors' branch, I chose the former. I joined Gray's Inn and each term at university I took the train to London to perform the strange ritual of “eating dinners” at the Inn. As time went on I realised that the theatricality and class-ridden cliquishness of the Bar did not appeal to me. Nor did I trust my confidence in confronting judges, who seemed a lot fiercer in those days. Teasing and bullying young barristers was their favourite sport. So, I switched to the solicitors' branch of the profession. To this day I resent the charge of £18 that Gray's Inn imposed on me for withdrawing my membership.
In the office which I joined there was comradeship and laughter. Legal knowledge didn't count for much. Most of the chat was about the absurd expectations of our clients, mostly accident victims, our exploits in the bureaucratic maze of the law courts, and, especially, the eccentric behaviour of the partners who directed our daily lives.
Hell Holes
The source of our clients was a few big trade unions, which sent their members to us when they caught bits of themselves in the moving parts of machinery in the factories where they were employed—many of them cramped unsanitary and dangerous hell holes. These at any rate were the memorable cases, because they were so shocking. Others were more mundane—running down cases, the apocryphal collisions between two stationary vehicles, if the drivers on both sides were to be believed.
The sole aim was to get compensation for the victims. The employers, or more usually their insurers, were determined to pay as little as possible, preferably nothing at all.
Claims were invariably rejected, then repeated with escalating threats. After the traditional trading of abusive correspondence a meeting would take place between one of our partners and the insurers' representative. As the same handful of companies insured all the employers for whom our clients worked, there were a great many cases to be discussed at these regular encounters. Hard bargaining took place at great speed with few expressions of sympathy for the poor victims. Once liability was conceded, the only question was how much. Of course, if there was serious disagreement, the details and the legalities of the situation loomed large, and the file was put on one side, for a later decision whether to start the long road to court.
The first step on that road was to flesh out the evidence. Then articled clerks came into their own. They were despatched far and wide to find and interview potential witnesses. It was the best part of the job. Accidents could happen anywhere, even in the most obscure places.
Hence, Uttoxeter. The client worked for a construction firm. He had been digging a trench for sewage pipes when he caught a dreadful disease, usually contracted through a rat bite. He should have been wearing protective clothing if rats were about. Our case was that it was the employer's job to provide it. But that depended on whether they knew or had reason to suspect the presence of small furry creatures in this particular neighbourhood. Anyway, how could they be sure he'd been at work if and when the animal sank its teeth in?
Smelling a Rat
My task was to find anyone who had seen a rat. Even smelling one would be enough. The clincher would be to find that previous cases of the same disease had been known in the area.
I rather enjoyed playing detective. My first port of call was the local hospital where my client lay in bed looking as if he was at death's door, but the prospect of compensation, when I explained my purpose in visiting his town, improved his complexion dramatically.
Unfortunately, he could remember little of the accident. The bite was a complete surprise to him. He'd felt a sharp pain and found a small mark on his leg but it was only the following day he was ill enough to call the doctor. He assumed it was a rat bite but he knew no one who had ever seen a rat in the neighbourhood.
Unfortunately, the town clerk, the council building department and the medical officer of health were no help either, nor a long procession of fellow workers on the site. It seemed that no rat had ever been seen in Uttoxeter. In my imagination, it was an English Hamelin. The pied piper had led the rats out of town centuries ago and that was the last of them. Or had the Roman legion, under siege and starving, eaten the rat population and frightened off all future generations?
I returned to the office humiliated. The case was hopeless. A disaster.
“Where've you been?” said Dennis, my boss. I confessed my abysmal incompetence. “My God, I completely forgot I sent you there. You needn't have bothered. Jones of the Mutual phoned me and offered ten grand. I grabbed it with both hands.”
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