Roll with it

It is music to my clients' ears that I have settled a couple of cases. The first was difficult on a number of levels because of its technicality and emotive circumstances. One of the claimants had been terminally ill for a long period of time and died the day before the scheduled mediation. The family bravely chose to go ahead in an attempt to get on with resolving what had already been a fairly drawn-out claim.

Composed and dignified family members attended on the day and the mediator suggested that we all observe a one-minute silence at the start of the opening session. That had the effect of acknowledging their loss without each of the numerous people in the room having to vocalise it individually, and require the family to respond.

The remainder of the plenary session was limited to facts and figures, meaning that we were all spared any grandstanding, which is usually a tedious rehash of a party's position statement in any event.

The parties retired to break-out rooms immediately afterwards and we made significant strides towards settlement earlier in the day than I had expected. The mediation was successful within ordinary office hours, which is a first in my experience, and I believe resulted in a fair outcome for all parties.

I also learned a valuable lesson in checking all equipment before heading off to such events when the zip on my almost ten-year-old giant suitcase chose to completely jam on the early morning train to the mediation venue. This denied me access to both my paper files and my laptop until I arrived at the host office and armed myself with a borrowed pair of scissors. It was ultimately, however, the mediator who saved the day by somehow conquering the rebel zip just as I was about to give up and hack my way into the case. It wasn't my most glorious start to a day at the office.

My other settled case was rather different as it was a relatively straightforward and low-value surveyor's negligence claim. However, the costs-paying clients, being a building society claimant and insurers for the surveyor defendants, all adopted very bullish stances from the outset. It mattered not that the amount at stake in the claim itself was not a huge figure, as there were bigger issues and principles which needed addressing.

From a defendant solicitor's point of view it serves as good reassurance for insured clients that they're getting their money's worth out of their premium payments and insurers will not just roll over to present a blank chequebook. We're now negotiating over the terms of the consent order which comes with its own set of satellite issues, but I'm hoping we can all walk away contentedly fairly soon and scratch another case from our to-do lists.

Wine, awards and legal debate

In the past two months I have also attended a few corporate wine evenings including a tasting event with clients at Vinopolis in London which was good fun and ended with a pleasant meal in their lively tapas bar. Weightmans also has an annual awards ceremony which coincides with year-end and is designed to acknowledge the contributions of deserving individuals to life at the firm during the past 12 months in areas such as the increasingly high-profile CSR.

I was only able to stay for half an hour or so at the awards ceremony as I had a diary clash, which is always a risk when you live life as a social butterfly. I moved on to an event which was billed as a 'Future of legal services debate'. Its Law Society-invited attendees were a fairly small crowd ranging from a College of Law student, whose knowledge of our profession was mightily impressive and who made connection requests to those he'd met on LinkedIn the next morning, to numerous managing partners.

We heard a report on market trends in legal firms over the last year followed by a presentation from a managing partner whose firm was on the verge of launching an exciting new brand image. She reported having made some extremely brave decisions since taking her post relatively recently, including shaking up the equity partnership system to link drawings with the performance of each partner. Other firms present confirmed that they had also adopted such a system. It appears that there will be no more easy cruises to retirement while resting on platinum-plated laurels for us lot then.

The conclusion to the evening was a theme with which I am familiar in my day-to-day work. The profession is going to look rather different in a few years time. We have a shiny new handbook to digest and will soon be jostling for position with ABSs as well as our familiar competition. We can either brace ourselves and roll with it or make like an ostrich and hope that nothing touches us. If you happen to be in the latter camp I wish you lots of luck. You're going to need it.