Letters to the Editor

CALL TO PARTICIPATE

Over the coming months, many solicitors will be invited to participate in one or more pieces of research about publicly funded legal services and complaints handling.

These studies will help paint a clearer and more detailed picture of what it is like to practise in the solicitors' profession today and I urge all of you asked to participate to do so.

It is not just the Law Society that is undertaking research this year but also the Independent Commissioner, Sir Stephen Lander, and the Lord Chancellor's Department (LCD).

We have tried to ensure that no solicitor will be asked to participate in more than one study, though we cannot guarantee that this will not happen.

The Society study will look at the profitability of private practice firms with the aim of analysing the impact of legal aid provision on a firm.

The results of this survey will provide the Society with the information it needs to get across to the Lord Chancellor on the issue of the inadequacy of the legal aid rates.

The LCD's research will be looking at the cost of running a legal aid practice.

This work will inform the LCD's review of supply, demand and purchasing arrangements.

A detailed and substantive response from solicitors has the potential to make a real impact on the shape of government policy.

Only if the LCD knows from its own research the problems legal aid practitioners face can we expect it to take action to tackle those problems.

Meanwhile, the Independent Commissioner has commissioned research to identify why some complaints are successfully handled in-house while others require the intervention of the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors.

These research projects are crucially important to inform our strategies concerning remuneration and complaints handling.

I know that for solicitors with busy practices, participating in a research study may not seem like the most rewarding use of time.

But the research will provide us with information we don't have at present which the Society needs to inform ongoing discussions with the LCD and the Legal Services Commission regarding the future of legal aid.

Only solicitors can tell us how legal aid really works today.

Please take part if you can.

Janet Paraskeva, Law Society chief executive

FOOTING THE BILL

How can institutions offering the legal practice course get away with charging incredibly large fees for such a basic one-year course? My total fees amount to the substantial figure of 5,400.

This seems very expensive for the number of hours a single student receives each week (about 12).

The materials covered in this time are much more straightforward and more basic than anything I studied while completing my law degree at the University of Liverpool.

In fact, the course is not even as challenging as the A Levels I took some five years ago.

A further point of note is that there is a large reduction in the LPC fees for students who graduate from the University of Central Lancashire and go on to complete the LPC there as well.

I understand from some of my colleagues that they are receiving a reduction in the region of 1,000.

The fact that the university is able to write off such a massive amount from the fees simply indicates to me that the remainder of the LPC students are being grossly overcharged.

Unfortunately, I am not in a position to boycott the LPC as I must complete it to continue on the route to qualification and obviously the institutions are aware of this and take full advantage.

I feel aggrieved that I have to pay such a huge sum for what I feel is a simplistic course that in no way justifies its cost.

I had to take a gap year working as a paralegal to save money for the LPC and subsequently I am a year behind in my career route to qualification.

Paul Hatton, Leyland, Lancashire

RULE OF LAW

Lawyers above all should speak out against the misuse of the law for political purposes.

The current indefinite internment without trial of (a few) foreigners in England is objectionable in principle, just as is the way the Americans have side stepped all legal controls by holding political prisoners in Cuba.

The working of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission in a context where a prisoner cannot know the case against him or be defended by an advocate instructed by him is more than a farce, it is contemptible.

Surely lawyers should refuse to take part in such a system and they should look to their professional bodies to campaign incessantly for normal justice to be made available to all within the jurisdiction.

It would not come amiss to lobby for the interests of British subjects held as political prisoners by the Americans as well.

D R Sceats, Surbiton, Surrey

SPEAKING IN TONGUES

I am the Law Society lay council member who led the calls for the profession to cease using Latin tags when it wishes to communicate with people who have not had the benefits of a classical education (see [2003] Gazette, 5 June, 25).

Almost by definition, solicitors who give their time for free will be doing so because they want to help people who cannot afford to pay commercial rates for their services.

Also, by definition, these are likely to be people who are less well educated than the solicitors concerned - otherwise, they'd doubtless have applied their education to the securing of a decent income (and might even have become solicitors).

Therefore, if the profession is serious about 'pro bono' work, then it is plainly daft to describe it in words which mean absolutely nothing to the vast majority of those who might benefit from it.

Speak to each other in Latin if you choose - but don't express injured surprise if the world at large is less than excited about your efforts to be good citizens if you carry on describing it in a secret language.

After all, volenti non fit injuria.

Steven Burkeman, York, Yorkshire

CRISIS MANAGEMENT

Recently you quoted Shell International's senior legal counsel, Campbell Grant, telling legal teams to seize the initiative when crisis strikes (see [2003] Gazette, 6 March, 16).

Although I agree with Mr Grant's statement in substance, companies need to take this concept one step further: do not wait until your organisation is facing a major problem to create a crisis management team.

In-house counsel must take the lead to develop and implement a crisis management team prior to a disruptive event that can eventually turn into a crisis.

Today, individuals responsible for managing businesses and public agencies must deal effectively with increasingly complex laws and issues or face the consequences.

With this type of forewarning, why would any organisation delay in analysing its business structure and developing appropriate crisis management and business continuity plans? Moreover, with the historical and case law information readily available, could not an organisation be held liable, under the concepts of constructive knowledge, negligence (foreseeability) or constructive notice, for not taking action to mitigate potential losses from a crisis?

Geary Sikich, Logical Management Systems, Indiana, USA

URGENT MATTERS

I recently contacted a County Court about an urgent interlocutory matter, which had been marked as such and submitted four weeks earlier.

A harassed, but helpful, clerk informed me that it would probably be another ten days before it could be put up to a district judge, which suggested that six weeks has become an expected time-frame for 'urgent' matters.

To confirm this, I know of a case transferred during enforcement proceedings, where the receiving court has not yet even confirmed that it has the papers.

Six months and counting.

Such delays appear endemic and spread the entire width of the south of England.

Formal complaints about delay have proved unproductive.

These increasingly severe back-logs show that the volume of business is greater than the staff engaged to conduct it can reasonably handle.

For once, solicitors appear difficult to blame and I suggest self-representation by litigants and case-management burdens on district judges must both contribute to the chaos, as do staffing problems within the courts themselves.

Help from the Citizens' Advice Bureaux has not been an effective substitute for case-working lawyers since the demise of civil legal aid and the Courts Charter is not a substitute for resources.

Policy created this problem and we can hardly expect the courts to solve it.

Lewis Hulatt, Hedleys, East Horsley, Surrey

SHARING PENSIONS

I read with interest District Judge Roger Bird's article on the present position concerning the valuation of pension funds within ancillary relief proceedings (see [2003] Gazette, 22 May, 30).

In passing, District Judge Bird makes the point that it might be impossible or undesirable for some reason for there to be a pension-sharing order, for example, where one party's pension is unfunded and already in payment.

If by 'unfunded' that includes the large state organisations such as the NHS and the Teachers' Pension Association where there is no specific fund but in reality the pension provision is underwritten by the state, then it is, of course, still possible to share that pension even when it is in payment and to obtain a cash equivalent transfer value even when the payment is already being made.

Jean Lang, Blanchards, Dorchester, Dorset

ACCESS DENIED

Recently, I received a memorandum of sale from an estate agent in relation to the sale of a property by one of my existing clients.

I did not have my clients' latest telephone number.

I therefore telephoned the agency to ask whether it had a number so that I could telephone my clients to get confirmation of instructions.

The agency said it could not divulge the number without my clients' authority.

Bear in mind the clients had given the agency my details for the purpose of the memorandum.

The firm of estate agents, like most firms of estate agents, feels free to pester me every five minutes for information concerning my clients' circumstances in conveyancing transactions.

Have I missed something or have 1 gone completely mad?

R Mitchell, RWA Mitchell & Co, Liss, Hampshire

HIGH-CLASS RODENTS

I received recently notice that the mice who occasionally frequent our offices clearly require a higher level of skill than that required by the many clients who we endeavour to continue to see under the legal help scheme.

Our annual report from the pest control specialists confirms that its operatives are charged out to us at 73 per hour plus VAT.

Jan Stanton, Stantons, Strood, Kent

A FAXING ISSUE

Did David Downton send his letter to you by fax and if so did he follow it up by post? I think we should be told.

I do not think confidence in modern technology is improving.

A client telephoned me the other day to tell me he was going to send me an e-mail.

I told him to put it in writing.

This letter is being sent by e-mail, fax and post.

D Campion, Humfrys & Symonds, Hereford, Herefordshire