Occasional advice for the judiciary and lawyers on matters of the mind, heart and the law
PICK of the week
Q. I have compiled my annual table of the 10 most popular words and phrases for the year (ended 4pm 30 November 2007) based on a perusal of the files of 500 firms of solicitors and beg to present it to you:
- Stuff ADR.
- We do not accept service by fax.
- Mr Justice Peter Smith.
- No disrespect to the court is intended.
- Our client instructs us he did not receive the claim form.
- Our client will defend. His lies will follow in the form of a defence.
- All provisions of the new lease have been agreed apart from the rent, term and premises. Please stay the proceedings for 17 years.
- Protocobblers.
- Counsel should ask for permission to appeal, whatever the outcome.
- Exemplary and aggravated damages.
Arthur Ponsonby-Erasmus, 12 Acacia Avenue, Burnley.
A. This is a complete waste of time. If you want to do something useful, count the number of solicitor office cats and cleaners now doing paralegal work.
Q.My bench has discerned an increase in advocate long-windedness which is having a serious effect on the dispatch of our business. Today, three cases had to be stood over because a solicitor advocate mitigated on a “without due care” for 70 minutes. It only became apparent after 67 minutes that he had brought the wrong file and believed his client had pleaded to an indecent assault. At least this explained his allusion to the client having made an incorrect turn. How can we get the advocates to be more economical with their tongues? Justices’ legal adviser, name and court withheld.
Your bench sound a bunch of wimps. Send them on an assertiveness course and put yourself on it too. You might also produce some scientific evidence to support your contention which you could send to the Law Society if it has not yet closed down.
Lock them in a sealed court room and have the air tested for advocates’ gas emissions. The samples can be compared with tests from advocates in other magistrates’ courts who are subject to proper control from the beaks. Sugar could also be added to your advocates’ adjournment tea.
I am a circuit judge regularly trying complex civil cases. In the last 12 months, alas, there have been successful appeals against 98% of my decisions although in all those cases I had reserved judgment. This was to allow me to give the fullest and most careful consideration to all relevant facts and law.
Q.I am becoming increasingly demoralised and hesitant about making up my mind. I have taken to reserving a decision even in uncontested cases and have a pile of over a dozen reserved judgments to complete. What can I do? His Honour Judge AH QC, Bishop’s Waltham County Court, Hants.
Retire.
Q. Is corporal punishment of trainee
solicitors lawful? BL, HM Prison, Wormwood Scrubs.
I understand from my legal friends that this is a grey area. If the trainee’s conduct is sufficiently serious, for example, refusing to collect your shoes from the cobblers, I would suggest that you hurl a heavy practice book—the White, Green or Brown books or Rayden on Divorce would be suitable—in their direction as a warning of what might be coming their way if the misconduct persists, at all times ensuring that it misses, albeit narrowly.
Although it could lead to a complaint of sexual discrimination, something lighter for ladies would be advisable—say, the Judicial Studies Board’s Guidelines for Assessment of General Damages in Personal Injury Cases, slightly fragranced.
Q. My nervousness as an advocate compels me to compose my cross-examination and closing speech the night before each case. This puts me at a distinct disadvantage when, as invariably happens, the evidence does not go according to plan.
I find it close to impossible to adapt what I have prepared while on my feet and this has led to considerable embarrassment in court and disappointing results. I am desperate. AZ, Manchester.
Have you tried unregistered conveyancing or will drafting?
Q. I derive a ridiculous amount of pleasure from reading subordinate legislation and am heavily into the CPR. The police have recently removed my hard drive containing images of all the CPR updates with explanatory notes. Can you help? R Hewson, Part 62 Woolf Avenue, Royston Vesey.
Take the Construction and Engineering Protocol and Sch 1 to the CPR as to RSC Ord 96 three times daily at an internet cafe.
Q. I am a trainee solicitor with limited experience of the opposite sex and work in a small high street practice. Whatever the type of case involved, I find myself steering every client interview towards the subject of how often they have sexual intercourse. I realised I had a real problem when I could not resist the temptation to raise my favourite subject when taking instructions from an attractive woman in a drainage easement dispute. What do you advise? DB, Staines, Middlesex.
Take a very careful note of what you are told, preferably in a hard-covered notebook, and be sure to discount the time spent on this subject when time recording.
