THE LAW - ANCIENT TRADITIONS, MODERN REALITIES

The young lawyer arrives at the gates               

of Heaven and says to St Peter "I cannot

be dead, I'm only thirty-two." He heard                 
the reply "According to my records the
number of fee hours you've charged to
your clients makes you 395."

And, wasn't it always so? High fees for
what Dickens described as doing what
lawyers do best - making work for
themselves. Remember Jardine v.
Jardine in Bleak House, where a family
feud over an inheritance supported three
generations of lawyers, until the money
ran out?

That, of course, was then and this is
now. What Big Bang did for the
consumers of financial services is
about to transform a legal system that
is not fit for purpose. It is one that we
can no longer afford in an
over-lawyered country with an
escalating debt problem.

The legal profession is the last of the                     "Half of criminal law firms could disappear from
great British vested interests and the                      the High Street, as result of legal-aid reforms"
Government is right to bring it into
the twenty-first century. Fixed fees                                                           Solicitors' Journal
with more transparency for block
contracts awarded to major new
players in the market will replace
what the legal-aid budget will stand.

Supermarkets Tesco and Sainburys,
together with the Co-op and logistics
company, Eddy Stobart, will bring a
chill wind of competition and
economies of scale to the legal
services market.

Whether they can offer the same
professional and personal service,
within a computerised environment,
remains to be seen. The focus of a
re-cast legal profession working
within a changed business model
will be delivering advice to clients
in the most cost-effective manner. 

Have lawyers in the past acted in
the public interest over fees?
Adam Smith may well have had
the legal profession in mind when
he observed that when people of the
same trade meet, the conversation
ends in a conspiracy against the
public and connivance to raise
prices.

For public, read taxpayer, who has,
up until now, paid £2.1bn annually
in legal aid. This has grown
exponentially, partly the result of
EU-imposed human rights -
£865,000 paid to Abu Quatada to
fight extradition to Jordan - personal
injury and medical negligence.

The Lord Chancellor's refrain in
Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe is
"The law is without fault or flaw
and I, my lords, embody the law."
Not anymore, it seems, as the cry
from the taxpayer is caveat emptor,
where paying for legal services is
concerned.