A law firm break-up is not 'a fantastic opportunity'

In my last piece I listed my unfavourite things. Here I give some helpful advice to my colleagues in the law as to things that might improve their service.

Counsel: Given the nature of your work it is a good idea to have an inbox capable of dealing with more than a one page A5 email.

Also when we deliver instructions electronically it is up to you whether or not your print them off but please do not return your printed copies to us. It costs you lots in postage and the resultant bonfires irritate my neighbours. Funnily enough if we want printed copies we print them ourselves.

Solicitors' firms: If you send us an email there is no need to send us the same letter in the post. All we do is charge you another unit for considering the letter and deciding that we did not need to consider it as it was the same as the email. This is a variant of the classic solicitor's bill: "To crossing the road to say Good Morning to you. To re-crossing the road when I realised that it was not you".

Insurance companies: It is not efficient to have a limitless pool of unqualified staff in various offices in the United Kingdom all of whom are equally ignorant of the matter and equally unable to help. Again, we just put it on the bill.

Cheques: No thanks. Card or internet or BACS - anything but cheques. Our staff do not like banks, do not like going in to banks and do not like walking to the bank and queuing in the bank.

So from now on insurance company solicitors you will be seeing bills from us saying: "To time spent in walking to the bank, queuing at the bank and walking back to pay in your unnecessarily high costs cheque reflecting your insistence on using the post and cheques".

Courts: Handing out holier than thou Mitchell decisions crucifying us for the tiniest human error as you preside over a crumbling court system that gets worse by the hour is offensive.

Making us drive 40 miles, to Aylesbury, to have the documents stamped "issued" as that is beyond the ability of Watford County Court is ridiculous.

Having a useless, centralised call system which won't take messages or actually do anything, meaning that we are unable to tell anyone that a case has settled, thus freeing up court time for other cases is stupid.

Ministry of Justice: Please see George Orwell's book "1984".

Journals: When I write an article for you, please send me a copy. That is not too much to ask. [Got the message, thanks Kerry - Ed.]

Conference organisers: Please do not who expect me to speak for free when you are charging delegates zillions.

Please do not send me four reminders of a deadline when I have never missed one of your deadlines in my life.

Please do not send me feedback criticising my notes when they were not my notes and I had stood in at the last minute when the speaker whose notes they were pulled out.

Partners of insolvent law firms whose senior partner is a Law Society council member: Going in to administration is not "a fantastic opportunity for the firm to be able to move forward to the next level".

Kerry Underwood is senior partner at Underwoods Solicitors

kerryunderwood.wordpress.com

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