Every penny counts

I sympathise with District Judge Nigel Law's frustration at solicitors sending multiple copies '¨of letters to the Court '¨(see Solicitors Journal, '¨10 September 2013).

Apart from annoying judges, which is never a good idea in my experience, and breaching CPR Practice Direction 5B 8.1, firms should think about the cost.

I regularly receive emails and faxes from firms however, in the vast majority of cases these are usually followed by a hard copy one or two days later. Why? Do the firms sending emails or faxes not trust them to arrive or do they just have time to waste and money to burn?

At my firm we have a policy that if a letter can be sent by email then it is sent that way, apart from the time spent generating the letter there is no additional cost to us. If it cannot be emailed we send a fax, which adds the cost of a short telephone call and if it cannot be sent electronically then, and only then, is it posted.

I recently received correspondence from one of the biggest firms in the country running to over 50 pages. It was emailed direct to my email address but then copied to the firms general email account too. That evening it was faxed to my office and two days later it arrived in the post. Why anything needed sending four times I do not know but clearly no thought was given to the time and cost.

The firm in question boasts no less than 2,400 employees. If each of those employees stopped posting just one letter a day they could save over £500,000 a year.

Most law firms are now working for fixed fees and those lucky enough to be charging by the hour will be on a flat rate of so much per letter written.

If we cannot put our prices up at least we can keep our overheads down and maybe '¨in the process keep judges '¨(and slightly obsessive '¨lawyers) happy. SJ