PI Brief Update

Judicial Rumblings

This week there have been an unusual number of cases adjourning at the judges own order with reasons given such as “too little court time”, “cases not settling” and “inaccurate time estimates”. Whatever it is, some judges can be particularly adept at making a little more time to spend with their families as school holidays kick off. Today I got a call from my solicitor in a case I am booked in to do tomorrow. He told me that the judge had rung him personally and made judicial comment on the fact that he couldn’t believe the case had not settled. “If this case comes before me tomorrow morning,” he had told my solicitor, “wasting valuable court time [for which read “time I could spend with my family”], then I will be seriously considering whether to make wasted costs orders against both sets of solicitors for failing in their duties [presumably to assist the judge in spending more time with his family]”.  As always, at the mention of a possible costs order against him personally, the solicitor got straight onto his client and tried to force him to settle.  “Unfortunately BabyB, he wants his day in court.  Determined to see it through, he says.”

It’ll be interesting to see what the judge has to say about that tomorrow.

BabyBarista is a fictional account of a junior barrister written by Tim Kevan. You can buy the latest BabyBarista novel, 'Law and Peace' on Amazon. The cartoons are by Alex Williams, author of The Queen's Counsel Lawyer's Omnibus.