Category Archives: Opinion

Brownie points

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When asked what possession they would save in the event of a house fire, many people will plump for the family photograph album. Even if there is research on the subject to back up this assertion, I think it likely that the population will divide along generational lines. Just as generations which made do with portraits and landscapes painted onto canvas gave way to photographs on film, so today many people take digital photographs and share them on line and never ever print them off.

I suspect that the owners of Kodak are ruefully aware of this today as I read that the company has filed for Chapter 11 protection from bankruptcy in the US with liabilities exceeding assets by a staggering $1.65 billion. This does not necessarily mean the end of Kodak as a business but it is a sad day when the inventor of that ubiquitous camera, the box Brownie, loses its way so dramatically. Millions of people will remember the Brownie and I am told that even Neil Armstrong took photos on the moon with one.

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Twelve Days of Christmas

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In these last few days of December as we pass the shortest day and can begin to dream of spring, I find myself coming into a Christmas spirit of both the religious and the alcoholic variety. We are all familiar with the song The Twelve Days of Christmas with its partridge in a pear tree and its lords-a-leaping but for those who may have difficulties of recall in these Christmas party-excess fuelled times, the first verse runs:

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
A Partridge in a Pear Tree.

The second verse:

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
Two turtle doves
And a partridge in a pear tree.

…and so forth, until the last verse:

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
12 Drummers Drumming
11 Pipers Piping
10 Lords-a-Leaping
9 Ladies Dancing
8 Maids-a-Milking
7 Swans-a-Swimming
6 Geese-a-Laying
5 Gold Rings
4 Colly Birds
3 French Hens
2 Turtle Doves
And a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

But what does it mean?

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Banging on

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There are times when I can be quite as grumpy as the next man. Indeed there are acquaintances (in the circumstances, I cannot call them friends) who think I have perfected the art. All I know is that there are people who wish to tell anyone who is listening what they had for breakfast and many other fascinating details of their daily life, and that does not appeal to me at all.

So I will not tell you about my recent train journey to Liverpool courtesy of Sir Richard’s Virgin Pendolino trains where, at a totally unscheduled stop in Crewe which was going to make us late in any event, the train came to a grinding halt and the “train manager” (whatever happened to the guard?) announced a complete loss of power and urged anyone in the disabled loo not to panic when the doors failed to open!

35 minutes later, power was mysteriously restored and we arrived some 45 minutes late into Lime Street to find there were no taxis. I promised not to tell you about all this but instead of being grumpy I found the extra time useful to catch up on some reading and to reflect on the end of 2011.

Will it go out with a bang or a whimper? I have already posted some predictions for 2012 [Old Holloway's Almanack, 1st December, 2011] and the time will doubtless arrive to review 2011 but I find myself curiously optimistic. Just as well I was not in the loo when the train stopped as my mood would have been somewhat different once released. Continue reading →

Old Holloway’s Almanack 2012

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Predicting the future is a mug’s game! However, it is fun, so here are my 5 predictions for 2012, in no particular order:

  1. Whether you call it inshoring, outshoring, outsourcing, northshoring or just stick with legal process outsourcing or LPO, it is likely that the process will continue to be in the news in 2012. There is so much difference between the rates of pay of a lawyer in Manila, Bangalore and Cape Town on the one hand and London or New York on the other that Managing Partners are bound to sit up and take notice. Add Belfast, Middlesbrough or Tunbridge Wells to the mix and Managing Partners are likely to find the whole concept irresistible. However, what happens if things go wrong? Examples might include that the quoted cost is not all inclusive of the benefits which have to be paid on top of salary in other jurisdictions, or that the quality is not as expected. English language skills may not be up to the expected standards and fluency may be way off. While accepting the benefits of outsourcing, 2012 may well be the year of a high profile instance of something coming badly unstuck. Continue reading →

Postscript from Munich

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If bits and bobs can tickle my fancy in some strange metaphorical way I would like to share with you four observations which struck me from the panel sessions at the recent IQPC event in Munich.

  • Firstly, Ronni Solomon of King & Spalding, Atlanta referred to a case which resulted in high level executives having to give discovery of their private webmail addresses.In the memorably named Helmert v Butterball in the US District Court Eastern District of Arkansas Western Division (May 2010) J Leon Holmes US District Judge said:“Active, online data is generally considered accessible. Zubulake, 217 F.R.D. at 318-20. Thus, in addition to conducting a search of active and archived emails in Butterball accounts, the defendant should also search hard drives, laptops, and the personal email accounts of Walter Pelletier and Keith Shoemaker*fn11 for the search terms described above. To the extent that it has not yet done so, Butterball also should disclose all of the sources of ESI within its possession and control.”. Continue reading →

Is everything in the garden rosy?

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Not if your garden is in Greece! The latest news suggests that horticulture in that part of the Mediterranean must be very tricky. Drought conditions prevail and the plants are looking a trifle sickly.

It is not much better further along the Mediterranean either with Berlusconi withering on the vine, Zapatero running for cover (elections in Spain have been announced early for 20th November) and Portugal assumed to be every bit as badly off as the others.

And that is before we come to our own rather parched patch in the UK to say nothing of the swathes of desert in Ireland and the increasingly bare ground in France, Belgium and the USA.

One of the few verdant areas in the financial garden is Germany but the indigenous gardeners are not keen on lending out their watering cans and still less their extra produce to sustain less fortunate horticulturalists. Continue reading →

Out of juice

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Is there a conspiracy out there? I do not normally subscribe to such thoughts but on occasions I have to accept that there seems to be an unfortunate conjunction of events to say the least.

A few weeeks back, at a time when some 40 million users of BlackBerries around the world from Europe to Asia and North America were incensed not so much by the failure of service provided by Canada’s RIM (Research in Motion) but by their obstinate refusal to tell their customers what was going on, it was little comfort to be reminded by numerous emails (if you could receive them) of a Ronnie Corbett sketch on the BBC’s One Ronnie Show, which memorably starts with his complaint that “My Blackberry is not working.”

While that fiasco will not have done anything to boost the standing of RIM in the business world (I note that since service has been restored there has been no meaningful apology or explanation and no discussion of compensation), the lack of service meant that I was behind the ‘curve’ when it came to a sudden outpouring of judicial pronouncements on subjects as wide ranging as the future of the internet, the Human Rights Act and the European Court to feminism in the courts.

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Finding the missing link

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I promised to return to the subject of the missing link at the end of my last post when I said that:

“I will try and explain what I think he (Richard Susskind) meant and how this ties up with new legal structures, technology, LPOs and dead satellites falling to earth in my next post.”

I was a litigation lawyer for many years and with all the benefit of hindsight and from the privileged position of no longer having to earn my living by being a litigator I occasionally pause to reflect on where the litigation process and litigation lawyers are going. I worry when I see a profession that is unable to find jobs for bright graduates of the LPC. They would be of huge benefit to their chosen profession, if only they could be selected for a training contract to help them pay down the debt they incurred to get themselves through university and the professional exams now demanded of them.

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Stuffs had strange names and were very expensive in the days of the Tailor of Gloucester

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Ancient legislation has been much in the news recently what with the 100th birthday of the Official Secrets Act of 1911 and the dusting off and scrutiny of the provisions of the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 by countless claimants and nervous police forces (and insurers).

The oldest piece of Statute law in the United Kingdom which has not yet been repealed is the Statute of Marlborough of 1267. Two provisions are still in force, namely the Waste Act of 1267 which seeks to prevent tenant farmers making waste on land where they are tenants and the Distress Act 1267 which makes provision for the recovery of damages (distresses).

Many people would say that an even older piece of legislation is Magna Carta of 1215, although the charter is not strictly speaking an Act of Parliament.

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The top 10 wastes of clients’ money (#10)

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James Moeskops concludes his series “Top 10 Ways in which lawyers are wasting their clients’ money”

Waste #10 Utilising the Wrong Level of Staff

One response from law firms to the pressure on hourly rate charges has been to pass document management and first pass document review down to the most junior and lowest-cost staff possible.

We have seen three approaches:

  • Increased used of paralegals, administrative staff and trainee lawyers.
  • Some law firms have established ‘central’ in-house teams typically in lower-cost UK or international locations (examples include Addleshaws (Manchester), Clifford Chance (India), Herbert Smith (Belfast).
  • Outsource often involving TUPE arrangements and long term contractual undertakings to one of the LPO firms such as Integreon, Exigent etc.

Passing certain aspects of the work down to lower hourly rate staff, whether in-house or outsourcing, tends to ignore the opportunity to leverage electronic disclosure technology, which would allow a far larger proportion of the budget to be allocated to the most senior and experienced lawyers (i.e. those with higher charge rates) .

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