I’ve been away for a while (from the blog pages, not the desk), but the most interesting events of the past month have come, to a large extent, outside the office, or at least outside of Kirwans’ offices.
The most exciting of which was a trip down to London to attend a mediation at one of the large City firms, on one of our most demanding cases.
Having prepared the first draft of the papers to be used at the meeting, I was eager for a settlement to be reached and on favourable terms, for our client. Attendance at a mediation is quite rare for a trainee, although its use is becoming increasing common, and it was great to be able to appreciate and watch the skills and techniques necessary to reach settlement on good terms, being applied first hand. It was an excellent day and embodied everything about why I chose to train as a solicitor. After nine and a half gruelling hours (which did not include the inevitable delayed train), the parties reached a settlement which represented a great result for our client. It may not be quite the same as returning from Wembley with the Cup, but the drink on the train back to Liverpool, reflecting on the result achieved, was a great feeling nonetheless.
Another skill of being a solicitor you are not taught at University or on the Legal Practice Course is networking and bringing in work for the firm. Over the course of last couple of weeks I attended the Liverpool Inventors Club (more on which will follow in next weeks blog) and breakfast networking event at Everton Football Club, hosted by a firm of Northwest Accountants. I also returned to BNI (Business Networking) as a substitute for one of our partners, to give a sixty second presentation about what type of work we do and what type of business/clients they are looking for referrals from during the next week. A sixty second presentation sounds easy but I can assure you it’s tougher than it sounds and reminds me of the saying; I wrote a long report because I didn’t have time to write a short one!
I really enjoy these events, despite the early starts, and I think they benefit trainees especially both in terms of building confidence at public speaking and networking as well as allowing you to get to know more and more people in different sectors in the city.
Finally, I attended a Costs Assessment Hearing at the Liverpool Civil Courts, in front of a costs judge with a reputation for stringency in awarding the costs incurred by the successful party. We again achieved the necessary result for our client, although I was surprised at the incredibly high level of efficiency the court demands of the successful party’s solicitor, in order to recoup all of their costs. It emphasised the importance of explaining to clients that they will never recover all of their costs, even in the event of success.
Nevertheless there is no doubt judges’ are on the whole more generous and reasoned today than some of those from earlier times. This is a short summary from a book on infamous legal stories from the nineteenth century, which I stumbled upon recently:
Judge John Toler Norbury (1745-1831), recommended to the jury that the Defendant be acquitted, at which point the Crown Prosecutor reminded him that the evidence left no room for doubting the man’s guilt. “I realise that”, said Norbury crossly, “but I hanged six innocent men at the Tipperary assizes so to square matter I’ll let this fellow off.”
I’m not sure what the moral of this story is, so I’ll let you draw your own.
Philip Gray
at Kirwans Solicitors