Report comment

Hello John,

We certainly agree on one thing and that is that the professional spirit has gone. I turn in my sleep when I hear that Allen and Ovary partners make £1.6m each, but dismiss 180 employees. I am nauseated when a PI claim is pleaded by Tees Law as being worth over £2m, but which then accepts an offer, made 8 months previously, 12 days before the trial is due to commence: ABC v. Bart's Health NHS Trust [2016] EWHC 500. Burges Salmon made me feel sick when they instructed counsel to plead fraud against two competent practitioners and then failed to even establish anything at all, let alone so much as a breach of contract after a 10 day hearing in the High Court : Mortgage Agency Services v. Cripps Harries LLP [2016] EWHC 2483. "Money, money, money..." as Abba would sing seems the only motivating factor to me. The costs must have been astronomic in both cases. "Bunsen burner, nice little earner"

But the question must surely be, how do we regulate this industry? Until now we have been talking about those who 'go off the rails' You say they should be capable of rehabilitation. I say, once dishonest always dishonest. Can that not be resolved by someone who has been struck off exercising his right to apply for his name to be restored to the register?

However, my contention is that the punishment should be so draconian that anyone suspected of dishonesty is automatically reported to the police and prosecuted if there is a prima facie case. Criminal courts should have the power to strike off. Only in that way will it be possible, in my view, to have a rule which only catches the wrongdoers without at the same time burdening the other 99%+ members of the profession with yet another level of regulation. Such stiff consequences might make any potential wrongdoers think twice. It might, just might, also raise the public's confidence in us and our ability to clear out our Augean stable.

I fear we shall just have to agree to disagree on this one. (BTW I remember life before the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1975). But thanks for the discussion.