Tag Archives: jackson

You are old, father William…

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How many partners do you know in law firms who are aged over 55?

The editor of Legal Week, Alex Novarese, in a recent post in the Editors’ blog speculated that there were a number of factors militating in favour of a review of the former destructive practice of law firms in this country to pension off partners as soon as possible after 50 and certainly by 55.  [Locking out older partners? The least-defended minority in the Square Mile, Legal Week, Jan 14th, 2011.]  He argued that the imminent abolition of the default retirement age of 65 with effect from April this year will force law firms to revise their employment policies as they concern “older talent.” He also argued that older partners may not in future “go quietly” as they have done in the past particularly after a number of internal restructurings and reduced loyalty as a result and if the forthcoming battle between by Leslie Seldon and his former firm over age discrimination ends in a victory for the claimant.

I found myself thinking of Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, published in 1865) and in particular of Old Father William. You will remember the poem!

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Education, education, errm…

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Fresh from the mauling the Chilcot inquisitors suffered recently at the hands of Tony Blair, the former PM would doubtless wish to offer a similarly spirited and robust defence of his 1996 speech when campaigning for the return of a Government of New Labour, in which he asserted that the three main priorities for government were: Education, Education, Education.

My recollection, on first hearing this speech, was that I thought immediately of the rather turgid 1970 film about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, called “Tora. Tora, Tora”! Presumably this was because I did not take the content of the speech seriously enough and could only think of the film with a similarly three-worded title (which I believe means “Attack, Attack, Attack”)!

Now, 14 years after the speech and billions of pounds of investment later, some would argue that the priorities had not necessarily been achieved and might question whether the money had been put to good use.

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50 not out!!

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As the English cricket season draws to a disappointing close, with the Aussies hammering England in the One Day Internationals and taking some (but certainly not all) of the gloss off winning the Ashes, I found I had nothing better to do but to  turn my mind to the CPR! (For the non lawyers among you, the Civil Procedure Rules and not Canadian Pacific Railways or Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation).

I was surprised to find that the CPR is 50 not out. Since their introduction in April 1999, there have been a number of changes to the CPR and the 50th update is mostly due to come into force on 1st October 2009…

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Jackson Road Show

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I travelled to Birmingham recently to attend one of the road shows hosted by Lord Justice Jackson as part of the consultation exercise following publication of his preliminary report. That exercise is now complete and we await his final report at the end of the year. The event was well attended, attracting about 150 lawyers, civil servants, trade unions and other professionals, with a keynote address by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge. Rupert Jackson’s two assessors, Mike Napier of Irwin Mitchell and Jeremy Morgan also attended.

Speakers included Professor Helen Genn, Anthony Hughes of FOIL, Amanda Stevens (Charles Russell and formerly of APIL), John Ussher of UNITE and Judge Stephen Oliver-Jones QC.

The message which came across loud and clear was that change is on its way and particularly in relation to areas of litigation practice such as disclosure. If lawyers cannot come up with a more efficient and cost effective way of dealing with disclosure, the rules relating to disclosure will have to be changed to make the process less onerous and therefore cheaper to comply with.

All this is of a piece with Mrs Justice Gloster’s view expressed at a recent Commercial Litigators’ Forum meeting that the days of courts filled with lever arch files are over.

You say discovery, I say disclosure…

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I must admit I have always been baffled by the decision taken by Lord Woolf in Access to Justice to rebrand the process of “Discovery”, which we all knew and loved and to call it “Disclosure”.

I don’t think you see the process called Disclosure elsewhere in the world and indeed, I have recently had reason to look at the new Irish Supreme Court rules for 2009 and see that they resolutely refuse to follow Lord Woolf’s lead and firmly call the process Discovery. 

I am not sure what lies behind the change but the process described is still the most expensive and time consuming of all the litigation tasks.

Coupled with the reluctance to come to terms with new technologies and the increasing amount of documents for disclosure caused by emails, back up tapes etc., disclosure has become a nightmare for clients and lawyers alike.

I hope that some sensible recommendations for change will come out of the Jackson review on costs.   However, a start could be made now if..

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