Jon Robins monitors the rise & rise of non-lawyers in the courtroom
Lawyers were reminded earlier this month how best to deal with some of the more alarming features of the new post-LASPO landscape, in particular the new generation of litigants-in-person and the burgeoning satellite industry of McKenzie Friends.
Guidelines
Lawyers were advised to adopt a “professional, co-operative and courteous approach at all times” in their dealings with unrepresented litigants, according to the new guidelines co-published by the Law Society, Bar Council, and Chartered Institute of Legal Executives. Such civility was extended even to lawyers’ latest bête noire, McKenzie friends. “The essential requirement of courtesy, as with any litigants in person, remains,” they added.
Well, up to a point. Lawyers were also told if McKenzie friends had the audacity to charge a fee higher than their own then this might be “a point that you might wish to draw to the court’s or the Litigant in Person’s (LiP’s) attention”. The chair of the Family Law Bar Association, Susan Jacklin QC, recently went so far as
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