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ISSUE 73 - DECEMBER 2007 HEALTH WARNING: This magazine contains comments that may disturb the bar Has your firm spoken to advantage yet about joining one of the Legal Buying Groups and massively reducing your office supplies overhead? If not.. call us today to receive details and information of how you can introduce an innovative new supply system that will reduce costs and save time throughout the year. Lower costs Why choose us as Save on purchase price and eliminate your one supplier? hidden costs. Flexible ordering Work with us to create an effective, efficient ordering system that’s perfect for you. Dedicated service One source, one solution means you PAGE 4 PAGE 8 PAGE 17 PAGE 26 can focus on the success of your Ted & Alice Catherine Calder Pupil Power New Year Quiz Tel: 0845 370 3500 business. Fax: 0845 370 3501 E-mail: [email protected] Superb choice Circulated FREE to Barristers’ Clerks in the United Kingdom www.advantageoss.com Choose from over 30,000 product lines, all available from just one supplier. WWW.CLERKSROOM.COM/MAGAZINE EDITOR’S PAGE Like lots of “Christmas specials” the December edition was prepared during the run up to the holiday, so I trust by the time you are reading this that you have had a great Christmas and are looking forward to a prosperous New Year. If you believe the government, the press or any economic forecaster, then we look to be in for a bumpy ride. Time to “remain seated with your seatbelt firmly fastened!” Bob Moss ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES TO: [email protected] We have had exactly one year of the “paperless” Clerksroom Magazine, available EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES TO: as a download version only. Allowing for an average this month, the magazine will [email protected] have been downloaded around 42,200 times during 2007 at an average of just This edition of the Clerksroom over 3,500 per month. I appreciate your support, and as Terry Wogan would say Magazine has been kindly supported by the following companies: for 2008: “Let’s see if we can make it a record year!” Advantage Office Supply Systems Ltd Unit 10, Poole Hall Industrial Estate, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire CH66 1ST. Of course, there are not 3,500 bar clerks and practice managers in England and T: 0151 357 3500 F: 0151 356 3459 E: [email protected] Wales, so other professionals must be enjoying the magazine as well. I would like to hear from any “non-clerks”. Corner House Design & Print Ltd The Old Chapel, Manchester Road, Carrington Village, Manchester M31 4BL T: 0161 777 6000 I have noticed an increase in the number of email and pictures being sent in. I F: 0161 777 6060 E: [email protected] hope this trend increases as I am reliant on you telling me what is going on in the Clerksroom Magazine is produced under licence by clerking world. If there are any aspiring journalists amongst the clerking fraternity JAR Holdings Limited, 20 Alexander Court, Chester, Cheshire CH3 5AW. 07734 995 902 who fancy writing an article, then don’t just think about it: do it! 1 DECEMBER 2007 ~ ISSUE 73 ARTICLE Referral Review By the Editor When it comes to work for chambers, bulk is beautiful, are first time claimants and ignorant of what should be but you are open to a greater risk as there is more to acceptable and what is not. The solicitors want the work, so the lose if things go wrong. This is particularly true of claim introducers call the shots. All the SRA can suggest is to An innovative Business and People consultancy service for Chambers the PI market. warn the introducers that if they persist in leading solicitors to Short of time in your Clerks Room? Lack the spare capacity for important issues? breach the regulations, then the SRA would “consider naming • Quality Mark and Bar Mark Compliance consultancy With the notable exception of foreign call centres, outsourcing and shaming” them. You can almost hear the claim farmers • Business Development and Marketing for professionals has taken on an air of respectability in recent quaking in their flash boots. • Human Resource Management/Development years. So for a firm of solicitors to outsource its marketing • Coaching and Mentoring requirement should not be a problem. Nor should it be a matter The research also showed the profound effect referral fees have • Software Training for clients as to how much a firm pays for its marketing had on the business model as applied to law firms. There is a • Investors In People consultancy services. That is, until the method of payment for the marketing concentration of cases in the hands of a small number of firms. Project Management – including relocation • services is directly linked to each client. Then it is called a This makes it good for chambers which get in with the relevant Financial Management • “referral fee”, and a whole raft of regulation comes into play. firms, but dangerous if any one or more counsel do not deliver • Interim Management – including relief clerking the service level required. Departments are created almost over Jackie Maskew is a qualified professional Jonathan Maskew is a qualified professional So no wonder that after 3 years of permitting referral fees the night to handle the volume, but can close down even quicker if coach and a chartered member of the coach with 19 years experience in Clerking SRA are now reviewing the rules and reflecting on their abuse. the work dries up. Chartered Institute of Personnel and a previous member of the IBC The 2 main areas are PI cases and residential conveyancing. Development with 18 years experience in management committee. Chambers Administration and 10 years in The latter is not too expensive at an average of £75 to £125 One firm which was reported to handle 8,500 cases a year Solicitors practices. per client referred, but the PI market has a series of problems consisted of one partner, a management team of 3 and 85 We also offer training and mentoring for key personnel tailored to Chambers’ and to each including the cost. The average is a staggering £600 per case. employees. Quality control must be a nightmare. person’s individual development needs. Presently working with Tony McDaid, Practice Director That represents a large proportion of the profit costs per file. and Sandra Astbury Office Manager of the countries leading set No.5 Chambers, along with Some lawyers want to return to a ban on the payment of Russell Hobbs, Senior Clerk of KCH Chambers in Nottingham, in partnership with Footsteps to A recent public opinion poll revealed that there is widespread fees, but those now prospering want the status quo to allow this innovative scheme of CPD and forward thinking approach to enter Chambers and drive them forward with their “Staff of tomorrow”. ignorance on the part of the general public regarding the be maintained. practice of referral fees. In the PI market most of the claimants T: 07941 478463 E: [email protected] www.footstepsms.co.uk 3 DECEMBER 2007 ~ ISSUE 73 ARTICLE ARTICLE - a problem shared!! Extracts from the Upjohn Lecture By Geoffrey Vos QC Refreshed from a break, Ted & Alice return to solve more of your tricky situations. More from our electronic mailbag... Extracts from the Upjohn Lecture delivered by Geoffrey regime that our new legislation favours. Vos QC: Chairman of the Bar Council 7th December Well, you may imagine that these sentiments made me feel as if Dear Ted ‘n’ Alice Ted: So just how do they get more blood out of the 2007 on the subject of: “An Accessible Legal Profession I had entered a time warp, and that the position in Continental Last month we went through our annual existing stones? Just ignore them and go about your Working in the Public Interest: Dream or Reality?” Europe was certainly very different from that in the UK. The appraisal and salary review. It all seemed to go business in your usual professional manner. Let others reason for mentioning this story is that it explains, in a way, the well, pretty much like last year. However, I was worry about who is doing or not doing what. a bit surprised when my annual pay rise was To my surprise, at a meeting with the Heads of European Bars course that our professions have taken, and why they have Alice: It does not sound like it is time to get the half what it was the year before. I thought may in Paris last week, I heard a French Bar leader objecting taken them. be everyone was getting less and that complaints procedure out just yet, and remember that vehemently to two concepts which I believe the English Chambers were cutting down on the overheads. appraisal time is often linked to salary review time. Now I discover that most clerks got the same as “Mums the word”. profession takes for granted. The first was the idea that lawyers But, I do not think that my French colleague would disagree last year. I do not understand why I have got provide “legal services”. The second thing he objected to was with me, when I say that, to have a successful legal profession, less. What should I do? Dear Ted ‘n’ Alice the idea that non-lawyers might be involved in making the rules we must command the respect of the public. The chambers Christmas party was a complete Ted: I expect it feels a bit like being sent to Coventry. Is disaster. I am told [I cannot remember anything] that lawyers must follow.