On 19 March 1976, a client of my now former partner was granted what was then called a Civil Aid Certificate. For various reasons, the client transferred her affections to another firm in September 1976. From then until my former partner retired from the practice in February 1987 to take up a judicial appointment, he was in fairly regular contact with his successor for the purposes of trying to deal with the costs incurred under the certificate.


I inherited the file following the retirement of another partner in January 1988. It then took 20 years to secure an assessment of the costs and eventually payment. This more or less coincided with the 21st anniversary of my former partner retiring. I think this is probably a record, but I would be interested to know if it has taken anyone else more than 31 years to recover their costs under such a certificate, or if a certificate has subsisted for any longer.



There is a further point I would like to discuss. From exchanges with a firm in Basingstoke, I have discovered that requesting, or perhaps more accurately demanding, a response 'by return' does not apparently mean 'forthwith', as I had assumed. It means 'seven days or so'. Perhaps practitioners outside Basingstoke may care to take note.



P C Dimond, Gullands, Maidstone