Court ‘management’ enriches litigators
Both Colin Jaque (Gazette, 12 July) and Angelo Micciche (Gazette, 26 July) are spot on when they talk about the burden of court management of cases.
In terms of case management, the Civil Procedure Rules have imposed layer upon layer of court-‘managed’ bureaucracy on litigation and now simply serve to delay litigation and increase costs. Examples of this include having to wait many months for an initial costs and case management conference, and then the substantial time and resource taken up in dealing with the preparatory administration.
This, of course, includes costs budgets that serve simply to protect an unsuccessful party from the full consequences of their folly and in many cases never come to be looked at again after the first CCMC.
Even in a relatively low-value, multi-track claim, a five-figure budget may be required to prepare for and conduct a first CCMC in order simply to obtain directions to take the claim forward. Contrast this with the time and cost of taking out a summons for directions and just appearing before the judge.
A cynic might think that the current system is designed to enrich litigators rather than provide a cost-effective service to customers of the courts.
Michael Watson
Concorde Solicitors, London SW1
Speak up for conveyancers, Law Society
Following the recent Special General Meeting, I think that the Law Society needs to ensure that its conveyancing and land law committee speaks up regularly, and reflects the concerns and ambitions of property law solicitors. The news space has been abandoned by the Law Society and occupied by the Conveyancing Association, which speaks up in the interests of members which are not aligned with the majority of property solicitors.
The obsession with technology is an example. This is promoted by various technology companies’ owners and suppliers as the cure-all for everything wrong with conveyancing (‘slow, Dickensian, dysfunctional, lack of communication’). But the truth is that those businesses which over-rely on technology at the expense of training and employing qualified staff, and which churn out technology-created standard enquiries, are the cause of lengthening transaction times.
My firm, like many others, uses technology for all sorts of purposes but not as a substitute for legal thinking. We employ and train solicitors. We concentrate on ethics and conduct, and on ensuring staff are up to date.
Estate agents have the data to show how efficient each conveyancing business actually is. Personally, I do not believe the anonymous five-star reviews some firms pump out. If only there was a way to collect this data and publish it, so that consumers had real data to examine rather than being recommended a conveyancer because they pay a referral fee (and where the actual likely end fee is perhaps disguised in small print).
All I want is for the Law Society to be my voice, because no one is, at present. I and others like me are not being heard.
Arthur Michael Robinson
CEO, director and solicitor, Emmersons Solicitors Ltd, Sunderland
When ‘bias’ is not getting what you want
In your 26 July magazine you published an article by family solicitor Antonia Kirby and counsel James Legg entitled, ‘Is it time for a gender-neutral court?’. Based on a report by Reem Alsalem, an expert on violence against women, it argues there is systemic bias against women in the family court system.
I have traced the report in question, which was published in June 2023 by the UN. In it Alsalem ‘highlights the deeply entrenched gender bias that permeates family court systems worldwide, resulting in immense suffering and violence for women and children’.
Kirby then quotes a case involving one of her own clients, in which the victim is … male. She writes: ‘He believed that his treatment would have been different if he were female and that his ex-partner received undue leniency because she was female.’ What are we supposed to conclude from this?
On a personal note, I retired from the bench in July 2017. It may be that the court world has changed much in the last seven years. One of my final cases in family – one of many pretty much identical cases – was a Child Arrangement Order involving a separated couple in which the father wanted substantial contact with his children, involving regular weekend stays, and more during holidays. The resident mother wanted to deny him any contact at all.
Having been through the safety checks, and established that the children wanted regular contact with their father, and that neither parent would budge, we awarded contact, but less than the father had requested. The mother then complained bitterly that the court was obviously biased against women because we awarded contact. The father said the court was biased against men because we did not give him everything he had requested.
How often, I wonder, do parties who do not get exactly what they want blame bias rather than the strength or otherwise of their case? And what has become of the maxim that ‘the welfare of the child is paramount’?
Anthony Melnikoff JP
Barnet, Herts
Going with a majority?
Monidipa Fouzder’s article (Gazette, 29 July) concerning miscarriages of justice touches on the possibility that the introduction of majority verdicts was racist. There may be something in that, because in the mid-1960s the feeling at the Old Bailey and Inner London Sessions was ‘try and get a West Indian on the jury’. The logic was that they did not like the police and were less likely to convict. Of course, in those days a defendant had seven peremptory challenges. Perhaps it was nothing to do with this theory, which was popular among lawyers practising in those courts. Perhaps it was just part of the attempt by the authorities to make it easier to convict defendants. Majority verdicts, abolition of the peremptory challenge and notice of alibi requirements were all part of that policy.
Many people think that, even if only one person out of 12 demurs, there must be a reasonable doubt. Bringing back unanimous verdicts would likely reduce miscarriages of justice.
Mark Ellis
Solicitor (non practising), Hornchurch
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