Letters to the Editor

BACKING PRO BONO

Ruth Brown suggests that those lawyers who do pro bono work are unwittingly hastening the decline of legal aid (see [2003] Gazette, 17 April, 14).

Not so.

Pro bono and legal aid are not mutually exclusive.

In my comment piece on pro bono, I said that 'pro bono work is an adjunct to, not a substitute for, legal aid' (see [2003] Gazette, 3 April, 13).

As the follow-up letter from Peter Browne about his law shop shows, imaginative pro bono ideas can effectively respond to unmet need (see [2003] Gazette, 25 April, 15).

And if the retirement comments of Steve Orchard mean that because of the limited legal aid budget there are going to be more advice gaps to fill, it is important that those who otherwise face social exclusion can obtain the help they need on a pro bono basis.

But that does not mean that the increasing willingness of lawyers to get involved in pro bono work should be any form of substitute for public funding of legal services at the level that the Treasury says the taxpayer can afford.

National Pro Bono Week (9 to 13 June) will encourage lawyers to participate in a variety of pro bono schemes that do not undermine legal aid.

I hope that firms up and down the country will give the aims of the week their full support.

Michael Napier, Attorney-General's pro bono envoy

OBSTACLE COURSE

The Law Society management course stage one is compulsory for all solicitors and by the end of the third CPD year this course must be completed.

I attended this course.

Other delegates also agreed that the course is not applicable to young solicitors and should be compulsory for those of us who reach partnership, requiring them to attend within the first six months.

It is pointless making it a requirement for us young solicitors to attend when we do not have any involvement, or minimal involvement, in the management of a practice at this stage of our careers.

Herpreet Kaur Kundi, Wiseman Lee, London

TACKLING PI

Personal injury awards for sports injuries are no new phenomenon (see [2003] Gazette, 9 May, 28).

As long ago as 1970 an amateur footballing milkman obtained damages for a foul tackle comparable to the professional footballers' awards for Brian McCord and Gordon Watson in 1996 and 1998 respectively against Swansea City and Huddersfield Town; and when a grandstand collapsed at the Cheltenham Races Festival in 1886, a first recorded damages liability was established for what has more recently been seen at the Bradford City and Hillsborough stadia disasters.

The recent successful claims against governing bodies in the British Boxing Board of Control and the Welsh Rugby Union cases are no more than an application of the traditional negligence principles for breaches of duties of care with forseeable risks of injuries to the appropriate circumstances.

With the colossal financial consequences to both professional and amateur participants for serious injury in all sporting and recreational dimensions and jurisdictions, the insurance and contractual liabilities cannot diminish as the global sports explosion continues without restraints.

Edward Grayson, barrister, former president of the British Association for Sport and Law; author of Sport and the Law, Butterworths (3rd ed)

SOUND INVESTMENTS

My reply to the Law Society's consultation on publicly funded legal services is as follows.

I do not accept the Society's premise that alternative models of public funding will be an improvement or save money.

Solicitors in private practice provide an existing infrastructure and unsurpassable levels of efficiency.

We are currently the not-for-profit sector and have to be efficient simply to break even.

Any form of remodelling of the provision of legal services would require massive capital investment and would be inferior in quality.

The government should invest in the existing structure, reflecting the time and money investment which we have made over the years.

The Society should be supporting us and not telling us that this is unrealistic.

Riaz Bashir, Stachiw & Bashir, Bradford

STAMPING OUT TAX

If I purchase a property for 250,0o0 the stamp duty is 2,500.

If I purchase a property for 25o,001 the stamp duty is 7,505.

The additional tax payable as a result of the increase of 1 is 5,005.

Should not there be a law against this sort of thing?

David Kennedy, Pennine Kennedy, Manchester