Waiting game

I arrived at court bright at early this morning to represent my client for GBH.

It's 10.30am now and there's still no sign of any prosecution papers or the client who is being brought from the police station. Also, they claim we have a judge but no sign of one yet!

In the old days we got paid to wait so I wouldn't have minded the delay so much. But these days we travel and wait for free.

Edit - after writing this I realised that in fact as this is a hearing known as a section 51 transfer, we don't get paid for any part of it whether it's travel, waiting, preparing, advising or conducting advocacy.  As I arrived about 9am and left court around 2.45pm that's quite a bit of free time I contributed.  Who said that solicitors don't give good value for money?

Comments

  1. Anonymous6 June 2011 at 16:21

    So what happened?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous7 June 2011 at 13:11

    reading this entry against the backdrop you have chosen for the blog looks like you've appended a scene of crime bloodspatter photo.....

    ReplyDelete
  3. Defence Brief9 June 2011 at 16:33

    Anon#1 we eventually got into court at 12.45pm, case then went over lunch because the judge needed to think about the case a bit. We eventually got a decision and I left around 2.40pm! Given that this was a hearing that defence solicitors conduct for free (i.e. we are not paid a penny for any part of these hearings, although we can claim travel back later) I'd say it's not bad value for the tax payer.

    Anon#2 yep that's what I thought when I saw it and a little part of me did wish I could find some Dexter style bloodsplatter for a backdrop.

    ReplyDelete

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