Civil

Which lawyers have played first class cricket? Daniel Lightman investigates 

There is a long tradition of lawyer-cricketers. Perhaps the first was William Byrd (1674–1744). Born in Virginia, where his father was an early settler from England, he was sent to English public school and went on to be called to the Bar and join the Inner Temple. In 1704, on his father’s death, Byrd returned to Virginia to take over his family’s estates, and is said to have introduced cricket there. Between 1709 and 1712 William Byrd kept a secret diary, the entry for 25 April 1709 recording: “I rose at 6 o’clock and read a chapter in Hebrew. About 10 o’clock Dr Blair, and Major and Captain Harrison came to see us. After I had given them a glass of sack we played cricket. I ate boiled beef for my dinner. Then we played at shooting with arrows and went to cricket again till dark.” 

Many of Lord Justice Jackson’s recommendations will have a direct impact on the Bar’s way of life, warns Stuart Sime 

Sir Rupert Jackson’s Review of Civil Litigation Costs: Final Report (“the Review”) was published on 14 January 2010. It will have profound effects on the conduct of litigation and the remuneration of lawyers. Without doubt it is the most important report in the area of civil law since Lord Woolf’s report on Access to Justice in 1996. Like the best reports in recent years (Lord Neuberger’s report on Entry to the Bar, 2007, is another example), Sir Rupert recognises that systemic problems cannot be cured by single big point remedies. 

Adrian Hughes QC and Steven Thompson discuss the Bar Council’s engagement with China’s rapidly developing legal market.  

Change in China has been rapid and extraordinary since the first visit of a Bar Council delegation 20 years ago. At that time, the Pu Dong commercial area of Shanghai was still marshland and the emerging Chinese legal profession entering only its second decade. Now, as the main image of Pu Dong’s financial district shows (see below), the landscape is completely different. 

How have practitioners responded to the Final Report? Counsel rounds up some of the comments made on the NLJ Jackson webcast 

David Greene 

NLJ Consultant Editor & head of the litigation & dispute resolution team at Edwin Coe LLP. NLJ Jackson webcast participant 

“A lot of solicitors get their business from referral fees, agencies and management companies. If they didn’t get that business you would probably find that they would have to go out and advertise and spend the money in that way, so I don’t think it is a straight game in terms of referral fees. 

Lord Justice Jackson has recommended sweeping reform of civil litigation, including raising civil damages awards by ten per cent and introducing US-style contingency fees. 

Jackson LJ’s eagerly-awaited 584-page Final Report into civil litigation costs, published in January, contains a number of controversial suggestions.Conditional fee agreements (“CFAs”) or “no win, no fee” cases should continue to be used but success fees and after-the-event (“ATE”) insurance premiums should cease to be recoverable from unsuccessful opponents, he recommends. This means that any success fees will have to be borne by the client, not the opponent. 

Lord Hoffmann has spoken out against Law Commission proposals to help individuals seek redress against public bodies. 

Currently, individuals must establish that the public body owes them a specific statutory duty or is in breach of a duty of care at common law before bringing a claim for loss. In January 2009, the Law Commission proposed abolishing this and instead letting individuals claim compensation if the public body has been “seriously at fault” in the exercise of its powers—an entirely new concept in English law.
In a speech on “Reforming the law of public authority negligence”, Lord Hoffmann said: “I think that is an absolutely terrible idea and I hope it will be quietly dropped.” Creating such a liability would add to the financial burdens on the public body. Moreover, public bodies must make choices about spending priorities, therefore asking judges to decide on these choices would be inappropriate, he said. 

Lord Justice Jackson will publish the final report of his eagerly-awaited Review of Civil Litigation Costs on 14 January 2010. An advance copy will be sent to the Master of the Rolls by 31 December 2009.

Names: Iain Milligan QC and Brian Lee
Positions: Head of Chambers and Senior Clerk
Chambers: 20 Essex Street 

The Commission’s much-anticipated proposal for a directive on antitrust damages (several incarnations of which have been circulating this year) received a near-fatal blow from the European Parliament in October. It remains to be seen whether it can be revived once a new Commission is in place next year. 

The Commission is consulting the public on how to develop vibrant online markets for goods and services protected by intellectual property rights. The consultation addresses the role of legal online markets and explores a variety of copyright management models. Deadline for responses is 5 January 2010. See: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/2009/content_online_en.htm