Many housing lawyers need to ‘resharpen and refocus’ after losing sight of procedure rules and practice directions during the pandemic, a judge said this week.

In a keynote address to the Housing Law Practitioners Association conference yesterday, His Honour Judge Jan Luba KC said civil justice is a rules-based system, 'but in the pandemic too many lawyers and legal advisers lost sight of that simple fact'.

Lengthy emails were a frustration for courts. ‘I asked my judicial colleagues what could housing lawyers do better. One word. Bundles. Housing case after housing case… it’s not rocket science but it’s being done badly.’

Luba, a founding member of the association, urged housing lawyers to ‘refocus and get sharp’. It would ultimately be the clients ‘who rue the consequences’ if lawyers could not keep judges happy by not knowing or playing by the rules.

‘Just as bundles and documents have become bloated, so too have statements of cases and skeleton arguments,’ Luba said. ‘Most skeleton arguments you cannot spot the bones let alone read them. What you want is a skeleton argument that is skeletal and gets to the point.

'The same with oral submissions,’ he continued.

Luba also urged lawyers to seize opportunities in areas with unmet legal need. Luba said there was ‘virtually unlimited work’ available that falls within the scope of legal aid. For instance, appeals against adverse decisions for homelessness assistance, housing allocation and the state of housing stock.

 

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