Lean, green machine

All in all, it’s been a monumental month.
At home, we have,
for the first time, braved major disruptive works by installing a new kitchen and flooring in three rooms. This involved adapting to family life
below ground, rather like mushrooms, for five whole weeks and making meals
on a camping stove.

In what would be a hilarious ironic twist, we are about to embark on a long weekend of sleeping in a field under canvas just as the works complete. On the up side, at least I now know how to cook up a storm on two gas rings – we’ll be the best fed bunch on the campsite.

I have, therefore, rather enjoyed entering an office environment free of dust and cardboard boxes. I’ve also had some scenery changes further afield, with meetings in both London and east Cheshire.

Super sleuth

During my travels, I turned
super sleuth, deciding on the spur of the moment after one meeting to make a site visit
while in the vicinity to obtain
a clear mental picture of the property which is the subject
of the claim in question.

To my shame, my spatial abilities are not the most honed. However, I used the clever little generic computer tablet, which was bought for a recent significant birthday to guide me to the correct place.

On getting out of the car, I walked towards the property while taking photos on the
same tablet device, to ensure that the image would be permanently committed to
both my memory and the file.

The wonders of modern technology never cease to amaze me.

I now consider myself well armed on this particular case
to go into battle with the claimant’s solicitors who baffled me with their letter of claim.

Incredibly, it spans 17 pages. In all my years of practice, I do not think I’ve never seen so
many words written down without any substance.

To add insult to injury, the claimant’s solicitors sent an entire banker’s box filled with documents in support of the letter of claim, much of which is utterly irrelevant. They are clearly majoring rather more on quantity than quality, and I shudder to contemplate the ‘value’ of their clocked-up work
in progress.

I aim to send a short, punchy letter of response with only a handful of key documents to demonstrate how litigation
can be carried out without ruining forests.

Another of my other cases
was in a trial window from May onwards, to be listed for the
first available two-day slot. The parties dutifully filed pre-trial checklists, only to be told that,
in fact, the case will not be heard before November because that is the next scheduled ‘multitrack fortnight’ in the particular
court in question.

We since wrote to the court
to both emphasise that all necessary work to take the case to trial had been completed and ask whether there was any chance of the case being heard before November.

The response was ‘no’, as the judges were not available outside those fortnights to hear multitrack cases. We were told that unless we can explain why our case is exceptional, we will simply have to wait.

We have made the usual noises about proactivity, rapid access to justice for the parties, the overriding objective and the like, but none of these ordinarily magical sound bites appear to be working.

We do intend to persist, and I will let you know of any success.

The same court, of which
I had no previous experience, told us recently that our case
had been transferred to another for the purposes of listing. On contacting the other court, however, we were advised that they did not in fact have the file.

After some head scratching by both courts, we were eventually informed that the file was situated in the ‘multitrack cupboard’, the like of which I
had never previously heard.

It turns out to be a form of
no man’s land between court buildings, where cases can
go to be forgotten about
at length. SJ

Catherine Burtinshaw is a solicitor at Kennedys