When anyone finds themselves in dispute with anybody, be it neighbours, employers, the police, once things get to a certain point, they either get settled or if resolution fails, they resort to court action.  In the case of trouble with the police, then certainly legal representation is needed before a case can be made.  When you sit and analyse just how many different situations call for actions by a legal team, you can then see that a career in law can be extremely varied.  If you choose to become a local country solicitor, this may involve a really huge variety of cases from property conveyancing, divorce and family court matters, criminal law, chancery matters etc.  On tv programmes you ony see a solicitor sitting in with a possible felon in a police interview room, sometimes we get to court, but then it’s handed over to the barrister.  But a career as a family solicitor can be much more exciting than it might first appear.

For the most part, we live our lives quite stress free where it comes to matters of the law.  Unless we go out of our way to break the law or otherwise cause us to need the services of a legal team, then we probably never have dealings with one beyond normal house conveyancing or other property matters.   There are situations however when knowing how to reach a good lawyer is critical.  When disputes arise at work on either side, if the usual forms of dispute resolution i.e. arbitration, have been tried to past exhaustion, then recourse to the courts becomes necessary.  Legals teams work in specialisms.  So an employment specialist will deal with any dispute that involves employee/employer dispute and contractual laws.  Civil teams will deal with criminal cases and actual breaking of he law.  A large city centre practice will have experts in every field of litigation, whatever the problem.

There have been some fantastic tales in the newspapers of late.  Many of them concerning celebrities who have made the classic error of committing a minor infringement of normally accepted practice – say got a little too saucy with a colleague and things gotten a wee bit out of hand.  Much later on, the other party tells someone, may or may not be deliberate – and then a massive snowball effect erups.  It gets into the press and we all know, don’t we, the press never gives up.  Unless an injunction is put in place to make them toe a certain line.  This is the point when legal teams are so necessary – although whether this is the correct use of their expertise and knowledge of the law can be debatable.   As soon as I read the phrase “A.N.Other denies any wrong doing . . . .” , a few days later, I expect to be reading that they have resigned or admitted telling lies!

Knowing just how to set about finding a good legal eagle in times of trouble is something very very few of us every have to worry ourselves about.  There are hundreds of crime programmes on tv – most of the troublemakers get taken into custody and we see them being verbally grilled in the interview room.  We witness the highs and lows of their sarcastic responses to the CID questioning and then we see little else.  There are rarely sections showing the next stage on, where the custody team get hold of duty lawyers and the papers go off to CPS for decisions on prosecution etc.   These are the kinds of things that real law firms get involved with and why it’s so necessary to have the fully independent legal system we enjoy in our country.  Being able to rely on unbiased assistance, free from government interference is something we are rightly proud of.

When a youngster at school is choosing their A levels, they will have thought about this for years leading up to the ‘6th form’ exams by selecting the right combination of gcses first.  It’s not possible to just sit the subjects you like and know you’ll pass, without having a clear idea of what outcome you want to achieve at the end.  The school will require the student to choose wisely to get the absolute maximum payback in terms of ‘points’ scored for each pass and for each successful entry on to university.  That is why a student wanting to study law at university needs to also look ahead a really know what stream of legal expertise they want to undertake.  Perhaps they wish to be a provincial solicitor, or have desires to be called to the Bar.  From there will possibly be appointment at a circuit judge or recorder, by the Lord Chamberlain…….

There hav been months and months of discussions concerning the changes to our law making processess that will come about if the brexit negotiations ever come to a conclusion.  Many folk voted to leave europe for the very reason that they want us to take back the power to set our own laws and rules again, just as we had for the hundreds of years before we entered europe in the 1970s.  I hear the shouting and barracking going on.  The remainers seem to completely forget that we existed and ran a very successful country – we immensely well respected the world over.  In fact our legal system has been championed as the best example as has our parliament – the mother of all parliaments.   Our aged rituals, pomp and ceremonies will continue – in all their rather bizarre grandeur and we will decide how we wish to apply the justice of our land.  Well, that’s the plan anyway!

When I go visiting heritiage properties, I am always reminded just how important my stomping ground has been to the making of this country as a whole.  The rise of Oliver Cromwell and his The new model army flourished in a town only 20 miles from here.  Before that, the gunpowder plot was organised in my neck of the woods – there are all sorts of building that belonged to catholic sympathisers and plotters.  The family seats are still available to visit and the monuments to these brave but somewhat foolhardy souls are all about.   This leads on to there being a lot of civil war stuff here too.  The major battlefields are within spitting distance of my home and there are so many little reminders of how we came to be the rich, historic but now law abiding country we are today.   So much loss of life and families torn assunder by different loyalties.