Sometime last year, a lawyer friend called me up. We’ve known each other for some time. After exchanging pleasantries, he told me he had a matter he needed help with. ‘I thought of bringing you in. But then I realized that I didn’t know your practice area. Sorry for not knowing despite knowing you for so many years.’ ‘Aiyah, no worries lah. My practice area… How about this? Why don’t you tell me what help …
I notice these days that the pupils, interns and fresh lawyers don’t hang out with seniors, even when they have the opportunity to. Or even if they do, they don’t stay long. Excusing themselves politely on the account of work or something or other. I am sure the mumbled ramblings of those of my vintage and beyond when we get together are dismissed as old uncle talk, and, therefore, not worth sitting around for. I …
I felt a deep need to prove myself in my early years of practice. If I could show how clever I was, I would. It was, therefore, fortunate that I conducted a case where I learned my lesson sometime in my seventh year of practice. We acted for a statutory body that sacked an employee over misconduct about ten years after the complaint was made. He sued them for his dismissal, seeking declarations and damages. …
This is one of the applications I dislike, if not dread. The application appears administratively innocuous. However, the legal implications of losing one can be severe. The basis of every Extension of Time application (‘EOT’) is the applicant’s or its solicitors’ failure to file or do something within the deadline set by the rules or directed by the court. It is typical for the lawyer’s fault to be a reason for the application. After all, …
In my lifetime thus far, I have been all three. The only roles I have not been in are that of a prosecutor and judge. Who knows. The future is a strange place. As a patron of the courts I resorted to it to assert my rights under the Consumer Protection Act 1999 (‘CP99’). I wrote about my experience some time ago in The Day I Was a Litigant | Unfair Contract Terms. In summary, …