The Defence Brief

Sir Terence Etherton, Master of the Rolls If you don’t know, the Master of the Rolls is a senior judge, in fact it is the second most senior judge in England and Wales. Before becoming Master of the Rolls any office holder will have had a career as either a barrister or solicitor (though let’s be honest there’s not been a solicitor appointed to the role so far but the office has only existed since the 2 nd September 1286 so there’s not been much time to appoint a non-barrister I suppose). The current incumbent is Sir Terence Etherton who has completed almost two months in post and is already proposing the sort of dotty ideas that are best left to politicians. There seems little doubt that the British justice system is, to use a technical legal term that you may not all understand, fucked. There has been years of under investment by successive governments in every possible area from the buildings through the judges and down to the lawyers that appear before them. The buil...

"Are you sure you're not undercharging, Mr Diable?" The Legal Services Board (they oversee the legal services regulators – they’re the bosses bosses boss) has published research showing that firms charging fixed fees are likely to be cheaper than those charging hourly rates.  This is something most of us in the legal services industry already knew. At London Drink Driving Solicitor , we think that we should be providing an excellent service for a reasonable price.  That doesn’t mean the cheapest - you can get cheaper and with some of those firms you will get a worse service, trust me I’ve reviewed some of their files for unhappy clients.  But what it does mean is that when you instruct a solicitor like me who is working on a fixed fee you know what you are going to pay. Let me give you an example, I currently have a civil law solicitor doing some very simple debt work for me.  He originally estimated £500 for the entirety of the case.  So far I...

Royal Courts of Justice - hopefully they all know the law here Motoring law is a niche area of criminal law that not every criminal solicitor or barrister properly understands.  It’s no great surprise.  I wouldn’t want to get involved in a serious fraud case because, although I’m an experienced criminal solicitor who has conducted minor fraud trials in the distant past, I do not have the expertise to properly represent somebody facing trial in a major fraud case. Motoring law, and the drink driving offences I mostly handle, is every bit as complex as any other area of law and can be a minefield for the solicitor who doesn’t fully understand it.  That applies every bit as much to courts as it does to defence or prosecution solicitors. Recently, I was representing a client who I knew had a previous conviction for failing to provide a specimen of breath at the roadside.  So, I wasn’t surprised to see that on his list of previous convictions, what did surp...

Choosing a solicitor can be confusing work Last December, I wrote about a case where a lady had come to me for a second opinion having instructed a solicitor's firm who immediately passed her case to an unqualified paralegal to handle. The paralegal then instructed a wholly inappropriate "expert" who produced a report based entirely on his own guesswork. They wasted about a £1,000 of the lady's money and proved that going for the cheapest quote isn't a great plan any more when instructing a solicitor than when hiring a builder. Today, I spoke to a lady who is looking for a solicitor. She asked me a lot of questions about my qualifications (that's a good idea, know who you're dealing with before you instruct them ). She also told me about another solicitor she had spoken to and had been impressed by, she gave me the other solicitor's name and made clear that she is a qualified solicitor - I admit I always ask who else a potential client has s...