Letters to the Editor

REFERRAL RETHINK

The Law Society's standards board, when considering a new rule clarifying payments for referrals, needs to take on board the following:

Solicitors cannot exist in a vacuum, they have to take into account the realities of modern commerce.

In the conveyancing field, licensed conveyancers may pay for referrals if they wish, they have no equivalent rule to that covering solicitors.

Solicitors have to accept that many firms of estate agents want to introduce a transparent referral fee system for each matter introduced - and this has to be declined.

Estate agents are well aware that the licensed conveyancers have no problem with such an arrangement, and from their point of view, why should the solicitors?

Estate agents in introducing panels want payment for the work that they do in relation to it and we, as solicitors, have to accept that it is not just a one- way street.

In setting up a panel, an estate agent is going to want to incorporate particular requirements and, as people have to look at houses outside office hours, those requirements include, for example, weekend opening and extended office hours.

Furthermore, a panel allows for a quality control system to be introduced by the estate agent, encouraging sellers and purchasers to raise any issue they had with their solicitor, directly with the estate agent and recorded by it.

Solicitor and agent review meetings can be held at monthly or quarterly intervals to discuss perceived problems that the public has had with particular conveyancers and, as a result of this feed back, the service to the customer can be improved.

As Michael Napier says, the horse on this one has already bolted.

The decision not to relax the referral code was a narrow one and was not a signal to the council of the Law Society to tighten it up.

James Carter, Martin Tolhurst Partnership, Gravesend, Kent

TOUGH LESSONS

I was interested to read Scott Neilson's article on student debt, (see [2002] Gazette, 12 December, 20) which was, unlike many others of its kind, to the point and realistic.

However, I was angered to read the suggestion of Julie Swan of the Law Society 'that the key to reducing the debt burden lies with encouraging more students to begin training contracts while studying the legal practice course (LPC) part time'.

If only this opportunity existed.

As a part-time LPC student myself, I have applied to many a firm under that exact pretence and have been told that unfortunately they only take on trainees who have completed the LPC.

And in reality why should firms take on students who may not even finished the course?

Yes, there is a limited number of firms that offer places to part-time LPC students, and yes it does ease the financial burden, but surely the Society cannot expect this to be a viable option for students while there are so few firms willing to take on the risk involved.

Even as a student, it has been drummed into me that I must be 'commercially aware', and surely a student who may not complete the LPC is not a good investment?

I am one of many students on my course who would welcome such a change, but unfortunately I cannot see how it can be any more viable than making more sponsorship available and charging more reasonable fees for the LPC.

Emma Harley, paralegal, Stewarts, London

FUNDING RIDDLE

Your article on law centres is to be welcomed (see [2002] Gazette, 28 November, 26).

It rightly highlights central government's failure to ensure that social welfare legal service provision actually meets real consumer demand rather than skating on the iceberg.

Hackney Law Centre's continuing funding problems reveal a vital need for central government to place meaningful pressure on local authorities to keep law centre grants for non-LSC funded work both stable and responsive.

While the Legal Services Commission's active support for new law centres is to be encouraged, without positive steps being taken to ensure established law centres are properly supported and resourced, such a policy appears contradictory and ill-planned.

This inevitably leads to an unwelcome conclusion that we suffer internal competition.

Pip Salvador-Jones, solicitor at Hackney Community Law Centre and secretary of the Law Centres Federation

PREDICTABLE OUTCOME?

The liability insurers, who often appear to be the puppetmasters of the Lord Chancellor's Department, have persuaded the department that despite the absence of any evidence that they are rising at all, claimants' costs in personal injury claims are out of control.

The insurers' attempts, by more and more imaginative challenges to costs claims, to create a climate where it is so difficult for claimant lawyers to recover a reasonable level of costs that fixed fees start to look attractive, are not succeeding.

Since no one seems to have any genuine expectation that the 'big tent' discussions will result in agreement on the type of cases to which fixed fees in personal injury claims should be applied, let alone the tricky but crucial question of the level at which the fees should be set, the insurers will argue that as agreement appears impossible, a 'predictable costs' matrix should just be imposed.

Until I have predictable clients, I will not be able to work to predictable costs.

The victims of a fixed-costs regime will not be the lawyers, who can always find something else to do if personal injury work becomes unprofitable, but the potential claimants who will not be able to find a lawyer to represent them.

The insurers will save money, but it seems likely that those claimants will be seeking state funding to pursue litigation under the Human Rights Act, on the ground that the predictable costs regime has deprived them of their right to a fair trial.

Perhaps lawyers should also be considering whether any compulsory fixed fees scheme is compatible with their human rights.

Susan Brown, partner, Reid Minty, London

PENSION DUTY

Some time ago, I negotiated a matrimonial financial settlement, which was subsequently incorporated into a clean break order by consent.

The wife received a large share of the capital assets because my client, the husband, was a member of a final salary pension scheme.

My client has now been advised that there is a shortfall in the pension fund and that his entitlement will fall short of that which was originally predicted.

It seems to me that with several occupational pension schemes now in difficulties, family lawyers have a duty to ascertain, so far as they are

able, the viability of a client's pension provision before advising that client to accept a potentially disadvantageous settlement.

CC Flynn, Inessons, Cleckheaton

COSTLY SEARCHES

I was interested to read in the President's Column that the Law Society was playing an 'active and constructive role' and continuing its 'vigorous efforts to encourage solicitors to apply for judicial appointments' (see [2002] Gazette, 12 December, 18).

Since it was also stated that the Society is 'currently investigating how best to assist solicitor candidates to become successful applicants', perhaps the charge made by the Society of 50 plus VAT for history searches against such applicants, as required by the Lord Chancellor's Department - to be paid by the applicant to the Society before a search is carried out- might be considered less than helpful.

Judith Goulden, solicitor, London

Law Society response: In line with the Society's policy of encouraging solicitors to apply for judicial appointment, the finance board of the Society decided on 7 January 2003 to waive the vetting fee for solicitors who require checks in support of their applications for judicial appointment.

Barbara Cahalane, Law Society Strategic Policy Adviser, Director

LAWYERS WISE UP

Following the recent suggestion that 'senior lawyers should act as parents to the more junior members of staff' (see [2002] Gazette, 19 December, 6) I decided to put this 'proper management skill' into practice.

On being told that she had to eat her broccoli, tidy her room and that I wished to veto half the guest list for her forthcoming wedding, the newly qualified lawyer with whom I share an office is threatening to take the firm to an employment tribunal and has invoked the Human Rights Act - 'respect for private and family life'.

Please, where did I go wrong in applying this particular technique?

Susan Hall, Cobbetts, Manchester

BLAST FROM THE PAST

I refer to your article on law firm founders (see [2002] Gazette, 19 December, 14).

From the evidence of deeds still in our safe keeping, we believe this firm came into existence before the end of the 18th century.

Certainly our predecessor, Charles Castleman, was in practice in this town and in Wimborne in the 1840s.

It was he - then in practice with his brother Edward - who early in 1844 promoted a railway to link the port of Southampton with south-west Hampshire and Dorset, as far west as the county town of Dorchester.

Charles Castleman worked hard to secure the necessary Act of Parliament, and when it was passed this was celebrated with a dinner in his honour held at the Crown Inn, Ringwood on 8 July 1845.

On his return from London as a local hero, his carriage was escorted into the town by a procession led by the local band.

A triumphal arch was erected and the Red Lion Inn displayed the motto 'Castleman For Ever' in roses over its doorway.

The New Testament Charles Castleman used when taking oaths is still in use for the same purpose in this office today.

Rowan Brockhurst, Meesons, Ringwood, Hampshire