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Don't you just hate solicitors (with due apologies to any present)


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The solicitor dealing with our house sale has just phoned to say completion has taken place today and not on Wednesday as arranged. Apparently the buyer has always been expecting this and organised accordingly but we went on what our solicitor told us only last week when we exchanged contracts.

What this means is that, with me away at work and unable to get back, the 2 days my wife thought she had left to remove, what amounts to a fair amount of stuff, from the garage has suddenly vapourised into nothing. Not to mention some final cleaning she wanted to do to leave the place as we would wish to find it.

The new owner is en-route with her removals van and my poor dear wife is now faced with loading up her estate car, probably about 5 or 6 times, and making a round trip of 30 or so miles each time to my daughters house where the stuff is to be stored temporarily. I'm trying to rally a few friends around but it ain't easy on a Monday afternoon.

Of course my solicitor will automatically deduct his fat fee from the proceeds and I'm left fuming.................grrrrrrrrrrrrr [:@]

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When were you contracted to complete? Does the contract indicate "or sooner" or some such term? You are entitled to retain possession of your property until the contractual completion unless both parties have agreed otherwise.

If your solicitor has broken the terms of your agreement, make a formal complaint. If solicitor doesn't respond with adequate compensation, take it up with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (who - rather than the Law Society - now regulate solicitors). 

In any event, a conveyancing solicitor should be well aware of the diffficulties that would be caused by bringing forward an agreed completion date and should not do so without the agreement of his client.

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[quote user="ErnieY"]

The solicitor dealing with our house sale has just phoned to say completion has taken place today and not on Wednesday as arranged. Apparently the buyer has always been expecting this and organised accordingly but we went on what our solicitor told us only last week when we exchanged contracts.

What this means is that, with me away at work and unable to get back, the 2 days my wife thought she had left to remove, what amounts to a fair amount of stuff, from the garage has suddenly vapourised into nothing. Not to mention some final cleaning she wanted to do to leave the place as we would wish to find it.

The new owner is en-route with her removals van and my poor dear wife is now faced with loading up her estate car, probably about 5 or 6 times, and making a round trip of 30 or so miles each time to my daughters house where the stuff is to be stored temporarily. I'm trying to rally a few friends around but it ain't easy on a Monday afternoon.

Of course my solicitor will automatically deduct his fat fee from the proceeds and I'm left fuming.................grrrrrrrrrrrrr [:@]

[/quote]

Hi Ernie, the money is in the bank and your wife has got the rough end of the stick!

Well now........................

open the champagne and remember to keep her a wee drop!

 

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Thankfully it's all sorted now, I managed to round up a bit of help and the buyer was OK about it too but I'm still a bit miffed.

We only exchanged last Tuesday and although today had tentatively been proposed as a target for completion that was over 6 weeks ago when the deal was first struck so when the solicitor advised us on Tuesday that completion was set for Wednesday the 8th we saw no real reason to question it and readily agreed.

I'm still trying to get to the bottom of exactly what's happened but from what I can understand now, almost from the day of the deal, the buyer went ahead and made arrangements for today but either didn't tell her solicitor or else he forgot and obviously it's only come to light now. Considering that our solicitor rejected the buyers contract when he recieved it as being, in his words, "a complete mess" I'm inclined to suspect the latter !

I suppose to be fair to our solicitor, now I have spoken again to my wife who took the call, it seems he did ask if it would be OK to complete today as opposed to saying we actually had, my slight mis-understanding in the heat of the moment, so I guess there was an element of choice there, but knowing that the buyer (who had already sold and was living with relatives) was on the way, plus the fact that the house was empty as we had already moved out and were staying with friends, we agreed to it.

Oh well, thats life.

Still don't like solicitors though.............................[:P]

EDIT:

To Leo, I didn't dare say that but..............................[6]

A couple of house moves ago I left for work from one house and returned 3 month's later to completely another which I hadn't even seen, now that's my kinda moving experience...!

 

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His "FAT FEE"!!!!.....................I'd be interested to know what the fee charged by the solicitor  for the work carried out in transferring your old property was - (NOT including fees for any new purchase, nor any payments made for Local Authority searches etc, or VAT) -

 - for doing the fairly technical legal work in transferring your property correctly,  who can and would be be sued for negligence if he gets it wrong, who studied for at least 6 years to become qualified, who is tightly regulated, is subject to a complaints process by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and has substantial professional overheads such as a practicing certificate, keeping up to date with Continuing Professional Development training, compulsory PI insurance  and so on and so on

- compared with that of the Estate Agent for printing a couple of sheets of paper and putting a few adverts in the papers and his windows - oh and don't forget the board outside your house - advertising his business!!.

I would suspect the actual "FAT FEE" for the sale charged by the solicitor is no more than £500 (and probably less) and the fee to the Estate Agent is more in the region of £2500 to £3000?

Of course, you could save the fees of both the agent and the solicitor and do it all yourself - if it's that easy?

Still, it's good that you try to "be fair to the solicitor" - especially when it appears that the mistake wasn't his but yours!!!

 

 

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True enough I did pen my original post in something of a black mood because we (or my wife to be more precise) had been placed in a most uncomfortable and difficult position which was not in the slightest of our making and I'm completely bemused as to how you get come up with the idea that it was all my fault [8-)]

The bare fact is that two highly paid solicitors were employed to do about as simple and straightforward a conveyancing as they come but somehow between them they managed to screw it up at the final post. All they had to do was agree on a date which surely must be an automatic action on exchange.

As for estate agents, well I'm never going to love them but ours actually worked quite hard for us and right now I probably begrudge paying them less than I do my my solicitor !

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So what are the "highly paid" solicitors actually paid? - do you know? I suspect the person doing the conveyancing is on probably slightly above the average wage, but certainly not huge sums and agan I suspect not as much as the Estate Agent

 - and what actually was the "hard work" the agent did? - I can't think of anything so hard that an agent does - a couple of chase up phone calls each week perhaps?

AND - why begrudge paying either of them - no doubt you asked them to do the work, they did it, and now you begrudge paying them - and all because you actually moved two days before you expected to (although actually on the day you agreed to!!) -  lets look at it - They did agree a date, and confirmed with your wife it was OK  and then acted upon it - what else were they supposed to do? - your issue should be with your wife who told your solicitor it was OK  - perhaps next you will be needing a solicitor to do your divorce seeing as your communication with each other appears to be breaking down!!

Somehow I think there is no pleasing some people - do you have the same problem paying all your bills - do you begrudge the supermarket taking money from you? Do you refuse to pay your train fares?

- or is it only fashionable to "Hate solicitors"? - wait until the next time you need one and then tell him at the outset that you hate him and will begrudge paying him his agreed fees - and do you know - the solicitor will still act in your best interests and ignore your prejudices - then try the same with some other tradesman and see what happens!! 

The job is done - pay with good heart what you agreed - OR alternatively don't agree in the first place -  as I said - you can always do it yourself.

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josa - From my reading of this only last week ErnieYs solicitor told them Wednesday, so were they supposed to guess that the buyer wanted to stick to the date mentioned 6 weeks ago? It seems to me the buyer was lucky that Mrs ErnieY co-operated, what if she'd been impossible to contact? Would the buyer have turned up and been unable to get vacant possession ? Moving house is fraught enough even when things go smoothly and all parties are present. Put yourself in ErnieYs shoes - how would you have felt ?

We only exchanged last Tuesday and although today had tentatively been proposed as a target for completion that was over 6 weeks ago when the deal was first struck so when the solicitor advised us on Tuesday that completion was set for Wednesday the 8th we saw no real reason to question it and readily agreed.

 

 

 

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Lets look at what happened .............

- I quote - "it seems he did ask if it would be OK to complete today" - so if it wasn't then say so - he asked, the answer was yes, and he did it - if the answer had been "no" and he went against clients instruction I could see room for complaint about the solicitor, but what he did was perfectly correct - in fact under his professional rules he had no other option!!

Given that the solicitor did ask (and did not present it as a fait acompli) would indicate to me that the date was in fact Wednesday and that the buyer just got it wrong, not the solicitors - if either solicitor thought it was today, then there would be no need to ask but just to point to the written agreed dates - but of course it is easier to blame the "Hated Solicitors"  - who appear to me to be trying to get things moved through for their respective clients who in turn can't give clear instructions as to what that actually want, so when they don't get what they want (but failed to tell the solicitor) they whinge.

If you do not want to complete today - SAY SO!!

The solicitor can't win - he takes instructions, acts on them and is criticised - what bunk!!   

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[quote user="josa"]So what are the "highly paid" solicitors actually paid? - do you know? I suspect the person doing the conveyancing is on probably slightly above the average wage, but certainly not huge sums and agan I suspect not as much as the Estate Agent[/quote]Do you seriously expect me to believe that Solicitors are NOT highly paid. It matters not one iota who did the actual work or what wages they are on, I engaged a specific solicitor to do the work and he alone is responsible.

[quote user="josa"]- and what actually was the "hard work" the agent did? - I can't think of anything so hard that an agent does - a couple of chase up phone calls each week perhaps?[/quote]You can have absolutely no idea of the circumstances nor what they did or didn't do for me, nor do I care to explain, but you obviously have a low opinion of Estate Agents (as do I in general) so could I possibly be correct in guessing that you might begrudge ever so slightly paying a fee to them for selling a house for you ?

[quote user="josa"]- and all because you actually moved two days before you expected to (although actually on the day you agreed to!!) -  lets look at it - They did agree a date, and confirmed with your wife it was OK  and then acted upon it - what else were they supposed to do? - your issue should be with your wife who told your solicitor it was OK  - perhaps next you will be needing a solicitor to do your divorce seeing as your communication with each other appears to be breaking down!![/quote]I think your powers of comprehension may be slightly dulled. Read slowly and maybe you will come understand.

At no time did either party agree to complete on Monday the 5th. It was a notional target which the buyer said she would like to aim for and no further discussion about it took place.

We signed the contracts last Tuesday at our solicitors office and they were exchanged that day. We were told at that point that completion was scheduled to take place on Wendesday the 8th.

Our solicitor telephoned my wife this morning to say that apparently the buyer was both expecting, and wanting, to complete today, would we agree to this.

My wife phoned me to discuss this having already spoken to the buyer and discovering that she was on her way with removals van.

Because of this, and the fact that we were aleady moved out, albeit with some belongings yet to be removed from the garage, we decided that it would make the best of a bad situation if we agreed so we did. That is not to say we were happy doing so.

Ergo the solicitors screwed up, not me.

I'm afraid I have to say that I find your flip remarks about perhaps needing a solicitor for a divorce somewhat offensive and therefore that I will not be entering into any further discussion with you on this subject except to say that I consider that your entire tone in this has, from the outset, been unnecessarily aggressive and confrontational.

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[quote user="Russethouse"]

josa - From my reading of this only last week ErnieYs solicitor told them Wednesday, so were they supposed to guess that the buyer wanted to stick to the date mentioned 6 weeks ago? It seems to me the buyer was lucky that Mrs ErnieY co-operated, what if she'd been impossible to contact? Would the buyer have turned up and been unable to get vacant possession ? Moving house is fraught enough even when things go smoothly and all parties are present. Put yourself in ErnieYs shoes - how would you have felt ?

We only exchanged last Tuesday and although today had tentatively been proposed as a target for completion that was over 6 weeks ago when the deal was first struck so when the solicitor advised us on Tuesday that completion was set for Wednesday the 8th we saw no real reason to question it and readily agreed.

 

 

 

[/quote]Thank you for your support Russethouse, you seem to have grasped the situation perfectly. 
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[quote user="josa"]

Lets look at what happened .............

- I quote - "it seems he did ask if it would be OK to complete today" - so if it wasn't then say so - he asked, the answer was yes, and he did it - if the answer had been "no" and he went against clients instruction I could see room for complaint about the solicitor, but what he did was perfectly correct - in fact under his professional rules he had no other option!!

Given that the solicitor did ask (and did not present it as a fait acompli) would indicate to me that the date was in fact Wednesday and that the buyer just got it wrong, not the solicitors - if either solicitor thought it was today, then there would be no need to ask but just to point to the written agreed dates - but of course it is easier to blame the "Hated Solicitors"  - who appear to me to be trying to get things moved through for their respective clients who in turn can't give clear instructions as to what that actually want, so when they don't get what they want (but failed to tell the solicitor) they whinge.

If you do not want to complete today - SAY SO!!

The solicitor can't win - he takes instructions, acts on them and is criticised - what bunk!!  

 

[/quote]

Hi Josa,

I don't think that if the solicitor involved ,was to read all of this thread he would be as motivated or irate as you are!

Kind regards,

Leo

 

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Quote - "Do you seriously expect me to believe that Solicitors are NOT highly paid. It matters not one iota who did the actual work or what wages they are on, I engaged a specific solicitor to do the work and he alone is responsible."

Answer - "most high street or conveyancing solicitors are NOT highly paid - whether you believe the truth or chose to believe the hype is a matter for you - but it was you who started out by referring to their fees"

Quote - "You can have absolutely no idea of the circumstances nor what they did or didn't do for me, nor do I care to explain, but you obviously have a low opinion of Estate Agents (as do I in general) so could I possibly be correct in guessing that you might begrudge ever so slightly paying a fee to them for selling a house for you "

Answer - "my best friend is an Estate Agent so I neither have a low opinion of them nor am I unaware of what work they do - again you show your prejudices - I have no low opinion of anyone who does a job of work - I begrudge no man his payments"

Quote - "At no time did either party agree to complete on Monday the 5th. It was a notional target which the buyer said she would like to aim for and no further discussion about it took place."

Answer  -"without asking you to read slowly, I would suggest that YOU read what I said"

Quote - "Ergo the solicitors screwed up, not me."

Answer - "no they didn't"

Quote - "I'm afraid I have to say that I find your flip remarks about perhaps needing a solicitor for a divorce somewhat offensive and therefore that I will not be entering into any further discussion with you on this subject except to say that I consider that your entire tone in this has, from the outset, been unnecessarily aggressive and confrontational."

Answer - "Aggressive and confrontationl!!! - I hate no-one  - but to allow bad men to succeed only takes good men to remain silent - you should read the title of your thread and then consider who was aggresive and confrontational - hate is a bad emotion"

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Hi Josa,

I don't think that if the solicitor involved ,was to read all of this thread he would be as motivated or irate as you are!

Kind regards,

Leo

 

Hi Leo - I guess you're right - I just feel it's wrong to hate a whole profession!!

Best wishes - Good night all!!

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[quote user="josa"]

Quote - "Do you seriously expect me to believe that Solicitors are NOT highly paid. It matters not one iota who did the actual work or what wages they are on, I engaged a specific solicitor to do the work and he alone is responsible."

Answer - "most high street or conveyancing solicitors are NOT highly paid - whether you believe the truth or chose to believe the hype is a matter for you - but it was you who started out by referring to their fees"

Quote - "You can have absolutely no idea of the circumstances nor what they did or didn't do for me, nor do I care to explain, but you obviously have a low opinion of Estate Agents (as do I in general) so could I possibly be correct in guessing that you might begrudge ever so slightly paying a fee to them for selling a house for you "

Answer - "my best friend is an Estate Agent so I neither have a low opinion of them nor am I unaware of what work they do - again you show your prejudices - I have no low opinion of anyone who does a job of work - I begrudge no man his payments"

Quote - "At no time did either party agree to complete on Monday the 5th. It was a notional target which the buyer said she would like to aim for and no further discussion about it took place."

Answer  -"without asking you to read slowly, I would suggest that YOU read what I said"

Quote - "Ergo the solicitors screwed up, not me."

Answer - "no they didn't"

Quote - "I'm afraid I have to say that I find your flip remarks about perhaps needing a solicitor for a divorce somewhat offensive and therefore that I will not be entering into any further discussion with you on this subject except to say that I consider that your entire tone in this has, from the outset, been unnecessarily aggressive and confrontational."

Answer - "Aggressive and confrontationl!!! - I hate no-one  - but to allow bad men to succeed only takes good men to remain silent - you should read the title of your thread and then consider who was aggresive and confrontational - hate is a bad emotion"

[/quote]

 

Poor Ernie wont be able to read the above until tomorrow as, he is probably surounded with champagne bottles and pound notes at the moment

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It doesn't matter which way you look at this - the solicitors involved were paid to liase effectively, they didn't. The person that paid the price for that (luckily for the buyer) was ErnieYs wife.

(hope there is at least a bouquet of flowers in it for her somewhere along the line[;-)])

 

 

 

 

 

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Thanks for the comments all.

'er indoors is indeed a "good type" and you may rest assured that she will be suitably rewarded when I get home [;-)] [kiss] [:$].

Unfortunately, being on an oil rig in the middle of the North Sea at the moment, my opportunities for whooping it up on Champagne are severely limited so it's apple juice and sparkling water for me. I can  at least access my bank account though and look at the nice numbers!

EOT !

(End Of Text (or Thread if you prefer!)) An old term from the days of Teletype and Telex communications.

Ernie

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Difficult to comment on the rights and wrongs of a particular case, based on information given on a forum without the input of the solicitor himself , especially if the facts have been misrepresented in the initial post.

However, it is true that High Street solicitors often make little or nothing out of residential conveyancing. It is often seen as a necessary service to generate other more profitable business for the firm. It nonetheless represents one of the riskier (particularly on the purchase side of the transaction) areas of their business, involving them in high insurance expenses and stressful situations. (I  have worked closely with conveyancers and, believe me, there is no way I would do it for the "rewards", especially on Fridays when most completions take place and the solicitor is absorbing the stress from all parties.)  

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Don't forget too that while solicitors are paid for the actual work undertaken, estate agents only get anything from successful sales. So the serious clients effectively have to subsidise the many time wasters.
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The phrase, "If you don't like the heat in the kitchen........................".

If conveyancing is so very onerous and poorly paid then don't do it! No practice is forced to do anything!

And that tends to be the problem with parochial solicitors: they do everything; or more accurately, try to; badly in many cases.

Sadly, solicitors are not generally, my favourite people, from far too much involvement in the law and bad experience.

If UK solicitors had any real nous, surely they would have years ago, pushed UK government to adopt either the Scottish system for real property purchase or the French system?

They fought long and hard when OFT carried out he "Competition in the Professions" review, to canvas for various areas to be retained! (I myself participated at OFT's invitation).

One sensible Scottish firm created a dedicated Extranet for their clients on the core practice website: clients were given a username and password and could check the progress of their conveyance, 24/7.

In any case, invariably, most conveance work in a busy practice tends to be undertaken by junior staff: the solicitor only tends to be involved at the death. Or if there are any problems! Which is why so many conveyancing clerks have become conveyancers in their own right.............

If a date is set for completion, why the big problem with completing on time? It's not rocket science!

[quote].............for doing the fairly technical legal work in transferring your property correctly,  who can and would be be sued for negligence if he gets it wrong, who studied for at least 6 years to become qualified, who is tightly regulated, is subject to a complaints process by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and has substantial professional overheads such as a practicing certificate, keeping up to date with Continuing Professional Development training, compulsory PI insurance  and so on and so on [/quote]

So? All professionals have similar demands: my CPE/CPD has become hugely onerous: more than a solicitor as they have conveniently side-stepped much of the normal obligations and liabilities on money laundering and proceeds of crime!

Fees? Well, I know what local solicitors charge: and it's well and above all other professionals locally!

As the bard said, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks..............."

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Hi Gluestick - well, methinks someone else is letting his prejudices get in the way of the facts - but hey, we are all entitled to our own opinions.

"Sadly, solicitors are not generally, my favourite people, from far too much involvement in the law and bad experience"

My point entirely is that to casitgate a whole profession on the basis of one or two personal experiences is wrong. I had a teacher who was a sadist and another who was a drunkard and another who simply was poor, but I don't "hate all teachers" on those experiences  - I hugely admire the profession as a whole despite my personal experiences - when I needed a teacher, some were there for me - likewise, I have had some very poor experiences of nurses and doctors, but to attack their entire professions on that basis would be small minded in the extreme - I don't like the bad ones (so I move on), I admire and respect the others - they are all individuals.........AND don't get me started on restaurant staff ( I used to own a few restaurants myself, in my younger days and, boy, how standards have declined - am I showing my age!!)

Now, sitting in Glasgow today as a dual-qualified solicitors I can say that the Scottish system for property purchase is actually a little more complex than the English/Welsh system, in respect of the legal work to be carried out and as far as working in either French or Scottish (I have experience of both), those two systems are antiquated in comparison to England/Wales. Many English/Welsh firms have online case management access for their clients to access in all areas of work(including my firm) and have had for some years.  

Still, what do I know  - I don't do conveyancing now as indeed  it was poorly paid and onerous.

And as far as side-stepping money laundering and procceds of crime are concerned, funnily enough by e-mail today I have just received further notification of some fairly time consuming training that we have to do to comply with both issues - so not sure where your coming from there.

Now - having confronted too much, I shall take my leave - in the further words of the bard - Exeunt stage left!!

 

 

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I can only speak from my own experience, which is perhaps of some relevance as my own work has brought me into regular contact with provincial solicitors over a period exceeding 30 years, as well as with accountants, bankers, estate agents, etc.

Despite individual failings, solicitors remain the single group of people in whom I would have general confidence. That is not to say of course that they are all without fault but I would trust more of them than I would be prepared to trust any other one group of professionals who spring to mind.

On the whole, I have found the solicitors I have encountered to be intelligent, hard-working, conscientious and fair people. They are also very poor at selling themselves, which I think helps to explain a lot of the criticism they attract. Their clients simply do not realise how much they do for them.

This has brought to mind an incident a few years ago when I was doing some work for a smallish (4 partner firm) who then relied mainly on residential conveyancing. The property partner was rushed off his feet from morning till night, the telephone ringing constantly. I once fielded a call for him from a client who had already spoken to him about 6 times that day and who was miffed to find that he was now engaged with another client. "I have just spoken to the estate agent who seemed to have plenty of time to speak to me immediately."

This particular estate agent occupied an office across the road from the one I was using and was in my clear view. When he was not repositioning his sports car (PAD 1 or something similar) parked outside (I never did understand why he saw the need to do this), or nipping over to the wine bar, I could clearly see him sitting with his feet on his desk, reading the paper or a magazine. He must have been the most relaxed guy I have ever met.

His "helpful" advice to the client was to speak to the solicitor. His only calls to us were to ask for his commission on completion of the sale (almost 6 times the solicitor's fee).

My guess is that the client had no idea about the difference in effort expended by the people involved in his expensive transaction and what terrific value he was getting from the solicitor. If I had been the partner, I would have made it damned clear to him what I had done, but for some reason many of them seem reluctant to do this.

Of course, no one forces solicitors to do conveyancing work, but it does help to bring in other work. Fortunately for them, that particular firm has changed emphasis and now derives most of its income from matrimonial and personal injury work. Otherwise, the firm would have ceased trading (no exaggeration - I was privy to their accounts at the time).

It might be good sport to attack people who make themselves easy targets, especially intelligent ones (no one likes a smart alec). But, as has been said, tarring everyone with the same brush isn't fair - or reasonable.

 

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