All at sea!

One of the many MANY things they never teach you at Law School is how often you will have to deal with clients’ misconceptions about the law. These range from how long things will take (no, it’s not a five minute job to draft a three page witness statement and no I can’t just phone […]

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A rose by any other name

. As a child, I had a number of family nicknames. Some I’m not going to repeat – although I have little doubt that my parents could be bribed into spilling the beans. But a few still come to mind from time to time. At my brother’s Bar Mitzvah, I was listed in the introductory […]

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Time is an essential part of any lawyer’s life

We charge for our time.  Weirdly we do it in units of 6 minutes – no idea where that came from, but there we are. We agree to do things by very specific times (the Claimant shall serve upon the Defendant by 4pm on Friday 1st April xxxx) but if it’s by reference to a […]

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It’s a question of Judgment

Usually I feel that it’s better to do something late than never at all. We’re better off scoring a late equaliser than losing the match – even though I might have enjoyed the match a lot more if we’d scored earlier on. You’re better off taking legal advice about a legal dispute before proceedings are […]

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It’s not me, it’s you.

It may surprise you, but I don’t set out to upset people. It’s just a natural side effect of what I do for a living that I often have to tell people things they don’t want to hear, such as telling them their case isn’t as good as they think is it. Some people take […]

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Stupid is as stupid does

Or sometimes it’s just people who take too much notice of social media or believe that AI knows everything. When I was at my first “proper” job in law, I spent seven years working for an entertainment law firm which sadly doesn’t exist any more – nothing to do with me, honest! Due to the nature […]

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Company pulls AI-powered talking teddy bear toy for giving sex advice

We all know that we can’t believe everything we read. And yet, I spend a lot of my time repeating that advice to people who insist that newspaper articles must be true, and that if something is in a contract that both sides signed, it must be enforceable. What’s more, the more “reputable” the other […]

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Where am I??????

Despite being a seasoned and experienced networker, and despite loving to give advice (whether solicited or not) I don’t often comment on networking dos and don’ts. I have (occasionally) complained about unprofessional practices, such as people who contact me cold on LinkedIn, with the intention of selling me things that not only do I neither […]

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Honesty is always the best (and sometimes the cheapest) policy.

It’s common for clients to believe that their opponents are deliberately exaggerating their position. How confident they are of their case. How much their legal fees will be, which they maintain you’ll have to pay “when” they win. How serious they are about issuing proceedings. Etc, etc, etc. Often these allegations turn out to be […]

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Big Mother is Watching You!

I’ve long since suspected that I’m being watched. And just because I’m paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not after me!!! My fears were confirmed to me recently when I had a phone conversation with a colleague about selling an asset through Sotheby’s.  A few hours later, the colleague reported that he was suddenly getting adverts for […]

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