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the spot", was not a very satisfactory way of doing things. Confrontation, or even conciliation, at an earlier stage and in a calm atmosphere, ought to be possible. Payment into court was a blunt instrument, and could work harshly on the plaintiff who won on the issue of liability, which took 4 days to try, but obtained slightly less on quantum than was paid in, that issue taking day. For a technical reason, interest was not payable on money paid into court. The court order might take a long time to draw up. Limitation could still work hardships, and the judge should have a discretion. Amendments to pleadings should be more liberally allowed. Discovery and pre-trial procedure generally should be more open. Representative actions should be much more widely available, e.g. in consumer and environmental and securities matters. The litigation system was basically a sound system, but for the litigant in person and the small man it needed constant tuning.
Admiral Godfrey Place, the Lay Observer; said that the common grounds for criticism of solicitors was that they or the law were too slow, too expensive, and too difficult to understand. Judging the merits of any particular case was necessarily extremely difficult, but certainly in a number of cases there did appear to be regrettable delay in reaching a settlement in a dispute or in bringing proceedings promptly, e.g. in injunction cases. Professional services were necessarily "expensive" to provide, and the public often had no real idea of this. The solicitor should try to give a careful forecast of costs, within a bracket, with a defined upper limit, the case being reviewed as it went along, and the client kept fully informed throughout, so that he knew what were the costs implications of a settlement and a trial and was not taken completely by surprise when the final bill arrived. The solicitor who took on unremunerative work which had to be impersonally delegated to subordinates, or who took on more work than he could handle, was running the risk of error and delay. The law was not too easy to understand, the client often had no knowledge of legal concepts and terminology. This made the necessity for careful, early, and repeated explanation very important, in order to avoid misunderstanding so far as possible.
Norman Turner, the Official Solicitor said that he acted as a sort of last resort or longstop in contempt cases, handling nearly 500 cases a year. Application was made to the court where the contemnor appeared to be unfit, or solicitors refused to act (often after patient but hopeless advice), or it could be argued that the contempt had been sufficiently purged by effluxion of time, or there might have been a technical flaw in the proceedings. Sometimes the Judge asked for his help as an amicus curiae. Application was made at an appropriate time, immediately in the case of medical grounds, promptly in the case of the contemnor willing to apologise; otherwise a general review was made after about three months, perhaps longer in the case of the persistent offender. The Judge had the power to direct release at a future date. The Phillimore proposal that all committals should be fixed term committals would be welcomed. The fixed term had the advantage of simplicity, especially in the case of the obdurate contemnor, involving the balancing of the time served against the gravity of the offence.
Members speaking from the floor drew attention to the low level
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