Not that anyone is interested, or looking, I have been trying to get the main site up.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Sally Clark is Dead: Let the Libel Begin
Our beloved professional experts now have something to trouble their consciences. Well, not really. Nothing much does seem to trouble those consciences.
When my firm could afford to do legal aid work I did a number of child care cases and the thing that really troubled me was the dispassionate approach of the so-called experts.
"Dispassionate" sounds like a word you would want applied to your "approach" as a "professional". It is different for each professional involed:
The Lawyer for the Parent
Not so for lawyers involved in this kind of work. What you need is a solicitor who is "involved" and "passionate" but also one who can stand back and be "objective".
It is a big ask and I have unbounded admiration for those of my colleagues who still do this kind of work in spite of goernmment restrictions on legal aid. (As a side note, I may hold the record for resigning from franchises with the Legal Services Commission in that I have done it twice).
The Social Workers
I can only speak from personal experience as a lawyer who used to represent parents. I am biassed.
Social Services (the "SS") tend in my view to live up to their acronym.
They intervene on a lottery basis (there may be many worse families in the same street who do not attract their attention) but once they have done so they hang on like terriers. Nothing you can say will detract from their certainty that they are right.
The Local Authority Lawyers
Poorly paid and overworked as they are they should not do as, in my experience, they do do.
They are the ciphers of their colleagues in the SS. They inherit all the bad traits and contribute nothing. They are the prime examples of lawyers acting as mere "mouthpieces".
When my firm could afford to do legal aid work I did a number of child care cases and the thing that really troubled me was the dispassionate approach of the so-called experts.
"Dispassionate" sounds like a word you would want applied to your "approach" as a "professional". It is different for each professional involed:
The Lawyer for the Parent
Not so for lawyers involved in this kind of work. What you need is a solicitor who is "involved" and "passionate" but also one who can stand back and be "objective".
It is a big ask and I have unbounded admiration for those of my colleagues who still do this kind of work in spite of goernmment restrictions on legal aid. (As a side note, I may hold the record for resigning from franchises with the Legal Services Commission in that I have done it twice).
The Social Workers
I can only speak from personal experience as a lawyer who used to represent parents. I am biassed.
Social Services (the "SS") tend in my view to live up to their acronym.
They intervene on a lottery basis (there may be many worse families in the same street who do not attract their attention) but once they have done so they hang on like terriers. Nothing you can say will detract from their certainty that they are right.
The Local Authority Lawyers
Poorly paid and overworked as they are they should not do as, in my experience, they do do.
They are the ciphers of their colleagues in the SS. They inherit all the bad traits and contribute nothing. They are the prime examples of lawyers acting as mere "mouthpieces".
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