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GAZETTE
MAY-JUNE
instance, ask the doctor is he prepared to witness the Will.
If a testator wishes to leave you a substantial amount of
money, do not have anything to do with the Will yourself
and refer the testator to a colleague to make it.
If you find, because of a change in the law, that your
client's Will is out-dated, you should draw his attention to
the change of law. An example of this, of course, is a
client with an estate substantially in excess of
£150,000.00 who has provided in his Will that his wife
will be universal legatee. You should find out if he has
children and, if he has, he should, of course, leave his wife
the first £150,000.00, if that is his wish, and split the rest
amongst his children. Otherwise the testator will be
voluntarily paying Inheritance Tax.
Do not agree to take on the position of Executor or
Trustee lightly. It is a very responsible position and can be
extremely onerous at times. Also remember that property
sold in course of administration will have to be accounted
for Capital Gains Tax, and if you overlook doing this as
an executor you may receive some unpleasant surprises
after your file has been neatly tucked away.
Litigation:
In all our work it is particularly important to take detailed
instructions from a client so that we can carry out his
work competently. This is particularly so in the litigation
side. Not alone does the attendance indicate to you the
time that was spent on an aspect of the case, but it is also
an aide memoire which will help you in taking the case to
the next stage.
In addition, detailed attendances are a great help to
you when putting together an account of your charges.
Never put your good reputation at stake for a client,
and if you feel that some application which he wishes you
to make,be it only for an adjournment, is unreasonable,
refuse to do it. Remember, if you are constantly
appearing in the Courts, you can get a bad reputation just
as quickly as a good one. It therefore goes without saying
that you must never mislead the Court, which apart from
being grave professional misconduct, would also be in the
teeth of your responsibility as an officer of the Court.
If for any reason you must withdraw from a case,
make this known in advance to the Court. It is
discourteous to the Court, and to your profession, once
you are on record, if you do not appear in Court when the
case is called to tell the Judge your predicament,
particularly if there is no appearance from the other side.
It is a fair complaint by the Bar that a small number of
the members of our profession are slow in the payment of
their fees, or worse still, never pay them. This is not fair,
and constitutes professional misconduct. Any solicitor
who has received fees which are due to a barrister and
who does not pay them over to the barrister could well
find himself before the Disciplinary Committee of the
Law Society, and in very serious trouble. Apart from this,
it is also an obligation for a solicitor to do his utmost to
collect the barrister's fees from his client and, if he fails to
do so, he should have the courtesy to inform the barrister
of this, and I doubt, if this is done, that the Barrister will
rely upon the technicality that the solicitor is, of course,
personally liable.
Remember that party and party costs will not
indemnify your client in respect of medical fees for reports
and attendances in Court, and the fees of other
professional witnesses, because the Taxing Masters limit
themselves to a specific ceiling insofar as these are
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concerned. This means that the solicitor will be
personally liable to the professional people involved
unless he has obtained his client's irrevocable authority to
deduct such additional expenditure from the damages,
which, of course, would be of no benefit in the case of an
infant plaintiff.
Conveyancing:
There are certain obligations which I feel are not given
sufficient emphasis, such as your liability to account to
the client in respect of the proceeds of sale without delay.
Generally speaking, I take this to mean not later than the
day following the closing of the transaction. If, by reason
of the fact that there is an unascertained amount
outstanding, distribution cannot be made the day after the
closing, providing that you are ninety-nine per cent
certain of the amount involved, the proceeds of sale
should be distributed, retaining from them a sufficiently
large sum to cover the liability in question.
If through your own fault, your client is on interest on
a building society loan, because the cheque has been
drawn, and this applies in the case of at least one building
society, and the client is at the same time on interest on a
bridging loan, you should make it clear to the client that
you will be responsible for the days of interest involved on
the Building Society's cheque, and you should do this
before the client asks you to do it. Sometimes it arises that
a Building Society completion is delayed for three or four
days because you failed to have the Searches in order as
requisitioned by the building society's solicitors.
If you receive any substantial sum of money for a
client, such as a large deposit, although at the moment
you are not legally obliged to do so unless a client
instructs you, I suggest that you should put it on deposit
for him and let him have the benefit of the interest. This
will redound to your credit and is only fair play. Of
course, if the client
directs
you to place any of his money
which you are holding on deposit, you must do so in your
own bank and you must account to him for the interest
involved, although you are entitled to deduct whatever
reasonable fees would be involved in making the deposit
and receiving the calculation of the interest. If you fail to
carry out the client's instructions you will be personally
liable. There is no obligation upon you to put the money
in the client's own bank account on deposit with a view to
obtaining set-off for interest, and if the client asks you to
do this, you should refuse on the basis that under Central
Bank regulations there can be no set-off between two
accounts which are in different names.
If you lose deeds and you fail to find them after making
a dilligent search in your office, do not sit back and do
nothing, hoping that they will turn up. Some Colleagues
have found themselves in enormous trouble because they
did just that. After checking obvious places where the
deeds might be, such as with your client, his bankers, a
former solicitor, or so forth, then if your records show
that you should have the deeds admit to your client that
you cannot find them and go ahead and re-constitute the
title, putting with the re-constituted title your sworn
Declaration to the effect that the deeds have been lost or
mislaid in your office, together with your client's
Declaration to the effect that the deeds have not been
pledged by way of security or otherwise.
Office Administration —Public Image:
The way an office is administered contributes greatly to