Life's too Short!

Mine Host asks an opinion of his litigation lawyer:

The result, for which Mine Host was billed circa $900, completely ignored one of the two connected circumstances for which advice was required.

Legal advice is like a 100 metre sprint. Stop halfway & you've got nothing.

Legal advice must be complete.

Mine Host is no ingenue around lawyers (their arrogant belief to the contrary notwithstanding.)

Due to hard & expensive experience, instructions by Mine Host to lawyers are:

• In writing.
• Concise.
• Bullet pointed.

Consequently, lawyers who crank up a dispute with Mine Host over the exact nature of their instructions, discover the dispute is quite brief indeed! (These fellers know all about the power of the written word! Nyeh nyeh nyeh!)

How did this particular lawyer handle Mine Host's ire at being billed for an advice that was not only incomplete, but had gone off on a tangent?

The junior who wrote it was a very young female who had been admitted as a solicitor for only a few months. She bristled up properly. (Most unwise, when one is a greenhorn)

The firm was a national firm. Heavy hitters. One of the nation's leading law firms.

Her written response, when asked why she had ignored half the client instructions:

"I decided that I did not have to adhere to your instructions"

Marching Orders Part #6

Law firm Ding, Dong & Dell had acted for Mine Host for many years. They were privy to all his affairs.

Mine Host becomes embroiled in a dust-up with his landlord. The landlord, an arm of a merchant bank, is named (say) McBank.

Mine Host was being shafted by the landlord. In hindsight this was landlord's original intention.

Mine Host visited Ding, Dong & Dell in their CBD tower chambers (river-view from each office) met with the managing partner, explained the unfolding scenario and asked would there be any impediment to D,D & D acting for him in the matter?

"Yes, no conflict of interest, no impediment whatsoever to prevent us acting for you"

Time passed, A mediation conference was looming, Mine Host contacted Ding, Dong & Dell for desperately needed advice.

The response was a terse letter explaining there was a conflict of interest for them and that they would not be able to act in this matter.

Too panicked to have time to spare for shoving pins, nay roofing nails, into little wax dolls of his erstwhile lawyers, Mine Host went to the next office tower, rode the lift up to the first law firm listed on the lobby wall, and found himself a new lawyer.

The mediation conference is in the offices of Acme Properties, a hard-nosed ruthless bunch of bullies somehow involved in this mess.

Water is sipped & small talk made until all parties arrive, the intercom peals, & a chirpy female voice announces to the directors of Acme that their lawyer has arrived: a "Mr So-and-So of Ding, Dong & Dell."

This was going too far. Mine Host objected most vehemently to the presence of Ding, Dong & Dell, stating the reason why.

The conference, when eventually held, is a failure.

The matter is finally decided in the most expensive of circumstances in Sydney. A Three-cornered spat, Mine Host had not imagined there could exist such a thing, a legal dispute consisting of Three equally opposing parties.

The Three parties are:
Mine Host
XYZ Insurance Company (representing Acme Properties, by now fallen out with McBank)
McBank

Readers may be assured it was unpleasant enough being taken on by McBank, without having XYZ pumelling from the opposite direction. XYZ & McBank used most of their energy getting stuck into each other, Mine Host was more or less crumbs, however that was all that was needed. Mine Host lost his shirt.

The clanger?

At the hearing XYZ Insurance Company were represented by the firm Ding, Dong & Dell.

Marching Orders part 5

Mine Host was offered and accepted a deal, due to vendor intransigence this deal was not consumated.

However Mine Host had paid a deposit. Due to the hurried nature of the prospective deal, a law firm in one of Queensland's large coastal cities had been engaged for the purpose.

The firm was headed by one of the leading legal figures in the city.

The deposit on the deal amounted to $40,000 and was to be held in the firm's trust account.

When the deal went pear shaped (as Mine Host had presumed it would) Mine Host dropped around to the law firm & asked to see Mr. Respected Eagle.

The receptionist informed that Mr. Eagle was "out".

"That's okay, perhaps you can help me, I'm only here to pick up the deposit lodged in the trust account."

"Of course sir! We'll certainly have that ready for you when Mr. Eagle gets back in, I'll just find the entry for the deposit" She produced a large ledger and commenced perusing it.

Shortly she asked just when it was that Mine Host had said he had lodged the deposit with the firm, as she couldn't seem to find the entry.

Mine Host referred her to the (now collapsed) contract, in which was carefully listed the location and procedures associated with the deposit.

Puzzled, she perused the ledger again.

"I'm afraid there is no entry for your deposit sir"

"Let me see that!" Mine Host obtained the ledger and quickly ascertained that his contract deposit had not been placed into the firm's trust account.

The receptionist went quite pale.

She began rationalising.

Mine Host cut her short, said he would be back shortly, at which time Mr. Respected Eagle would be waiting with a cheque for the full amount of the returned deposit.

When Mine Host returned Mr. Respected Eagle was waiting with a cheque drawn for the full amount. No words were exchanged.

Mine Host walked the cheque accross to his bank, deposited it and had the branch confirm the cheque had cleared.

Mr. Respected Eagle continued to be a respected pillar of the legal profession in that city. Mine Host often wondered if there was ever a client who had retained the firm for a shorter time than he.

Over time, by the manner in which the firm Respected & Respected were referred to, Mine Host gathered that his experience of Mr. Respected Eagle was far from unique, and that the firm's respected position was due more to no mud having stuck, rather than impeccable ethics.

The firm Respected & Respected, now in the hands of the next generation, has nothing to be proud of in their recent past.

No bill was ever sent for the small amount of work Mr. Respected Eagle had performed on the flopped deal.

Marching Orders part 4

The Pub Next Door had sold. The sale had been brokered by a leading Hotel Broker on behalf of an absentee mortgagee.

The price paid by the buyer was 10% less than Mine Host's cash offer, leaving a very sour taste in Mine Host's mouth. The broker was Cain & Abel Pty Ltd, one of the state's leading Hotel Brokers, with a supposedly impeccable reputation.

The vendor was a Melbourne loan shark, as mortgagee-in-possession. The loan shark had engaged a Melbourne real estate agent to handle the sale. The Melbourne real estate agent, lacking local or industry knowledge, had in turn engaged Cain & Abel hotel brokers, at the time supposedly one of Qld's leading hotel brokerage firms.

Mine Host, being next door in the Wayside Tavern, and on the hunt for another pub, should have been considered a "hot" prospective purchaser, and immediately been targeted by Cain & Abel.

Mr Cain (of Cain & Abel) revealed the upcoming sale to Mine Host only when Mine Host phoned on another matter. Thus alerted to the sale, Mine Host immediately requested an inspection.

It was to be another Two months before an inspection could be arranged. Even then it was by accident (receptionist was out & Mr. Cain had answered the phone himself)
Soured from Two months of unreturned phone call exasperation, Mine Host took this window of opportunity to arrange an immediate inspection.

That night Mr. Cain phoned and to say that unless an unconditional offer (above a certain amount) was made by midday the following day, Mine Host was "out". (This is not normal procedure for commerical transactions)

Three working hours to arrange an unconditional cash bid for the neighboring property?

Mine Host met this ultimatum. Mr. Cain then manufactured a disagreement over the size of the deposit. Mine Host's intended deposit was $100,000 Cain & Abel demanded $150,000 or Mine Host was "out".

The lawyer handling this matter for Mine Host was not the usual partner at Golf, Racing & Gladhanding, but an offsider. A migrant lady with a very strong accent. The amount of hotel sale work done by G.R. & G. meant their relationship to the Cain & Abel was a tad too close for Mine Host's comfort.

There were many meetings between Cain & Abel and G.R. & G's foreign-accented Associate, all on other matters, at which they occassionally took the opportunity to cover the minutia of Mine Host's attempted transaction. Mine Host was none too comfortable at the reverent tone adopted by the foreign-accented Associate when referring to the firm of Golf, Racing & Gladhanding.

Disagreement over the deposit amount would have been brief, lasting only a few hours. Cain & Abel needed only this briefest possible time to get a contract to the preferred buyer, thus making the sale a fait accompli.

In subsequent discussion with the very heavily foreign-accented Associate, Mine Host wryly observed that the firm of Cain & Abel had acquitted themselves with neither honour nor decency, that indisputably they had not acted in the best interests of their client.

The heavily foreign-accented Associate took umbrage at this slight on the (reverently referred to) firm of Cain & Abel and proceeded to give Mine Host a thorough dressing down.

The dressing down wasn't a direct one, but a "commerical transactions for dummies" lecture.

Taking quite a bit of offence - at recieving a lecture on commericial etiquette from one whose commercial experience was purely vicarious, and at the strident siding with the (indispuably unethical) opposition, by someone who is supposedly acting for him - Mine Host immediately dismissed the law firm of Golf, Racing & Gladhanding.

Marching Orders part 3

Mine Host had received a ticket. It arrived in the mail.
Penalty: Several Hundred Dollars.
Offence: Refusing an inspection of the Premises.
Regulatory Authority writing the ticket: Fire Brigade (in a city hundreds of miles away).

Being as the Fire Brigade had not, via any of the following methods, indicated they wished to inspect the Wayside Tavern:
Fax,
Telephone Call,
Letter, posted,
Letter, couriered,
Messenger Boy,
Attending the Premises in person,
Carrier Pigeon,
Smoke Signal,
(in this day & age, to this list one would add "email"),
Any other method one can think of,
Mine Host made the assumption that being as the ticket was on the unreasonable side of unjust, it would be easily contested.

Mine Host met with his solicitor-of-the-moment and laid the facts before him.
Mine Host instructed his lawyer (the firm's senior partner) that he considered the ticket to be unjust, unreasonable, vexatious, lowdown, cheating, disgusting, insulting, a mongrel act, etc etc etc, and that he wished to challenge it in court.
The law firm in question did quite a lot of this sort of work, though mostly with tickets written by the police.
The legal advice provided on the spot to Mine Host was to make no response, and the matter would proceed to court.
On the spot Mine Host raised the question that this advice was in diametric contrast to the "How to Respond" instructions on the back of the ticket.
The solicitor (experienced in these matters) repeated his advice.

Mine Host complied with the advice. By failing meet the deadline for response to the ticket the matter became an automatic judgement against Mine Host, was not able to be defended and Mine Host was a de facto defaulter and had to pay the fine plus an extra penalty.

Consequently Mine Host never again contacted that law firm, who at least had the good grace to never send a bill, for that or any other work. The senior partner in a remarkable display of self-preservation - or perhaps in a display of shame uncharasteric for his profession - has ever since managed to keep out of Mine Host's sight.

Since that date relations between Mine Host and the Queensland Fire Brigade have been of a most frigid nature.

Marching Orders part 2

Mine Host requested an advice from a lawyer. He contacted his (then) current law firm and was directed to a smart young lawyer specialising in the field in question.

The requested advice was: "What are the implications and downside to winding up "Shelf Company X"?

Shelf Company X was a small company that had been used by Mine Host in the past. It had no assets, had not traded for several years, yet had suddenly become the target of a massive claim by the Tax Office, for a figure well into Six digits. (How Shelf Company X got into this predicament will be covered in another post)

At the time Mine Host was thousands of miles away in a new career, working more hours than a human should be awake, and did not want to engage in litigation against the ATO.

Especially as:
If he won: He got nothing except a massive legal bill.
If he lost: He had to pay the massive Six figure sum and he got a massive legal bill.

The smart young lawyer sent Mine Host a very long written advice. He covered many topics, but made no mention of the implications of winding up the company.

Mine Host phoned & wrote to the lawyer, restating the initial request.

The Smart Young Lawyer sent Mine Host another long written advice, covering many topics, but again made no mention of the implications of winding up the company.

Mine Host contacted the Lawyer again, ensured the lawyer understood his simple request and once again the Smart Young Lawyer sent a long written advice.... (and so on and so forth).

This went on for several exchanges. Mine Host grew rapidly more impatient. Time was wasting.

Eventually in exasperation Mine Host contacted the overseeing partner at the law firm and in-a-manner-that-could-not-be-mistaken instructed the partner that he was-sick-to-death-of-the-Smart-Young-Lawyer giving advice-on-everything-under-the-sun-except what he had been asked.

Shortly thereafter Mine Host received the advice he requested.

The advice: (abridged) "If the company is dissolved nothing will happen. The sole creditor is the ATO, and they won't be able to grab anything. Your troubles will be over"

The time take to produce the Two Paragraph Advice: One Month

The bill: $20,000.00 (due to the large amount of written advice provided)

Mine Host severed relations with that law firm just as soon as Shelf Company X was dissolved.

Marching Orders part #1

A couple of months ago Legal Eagle and Mine Host discussed briefly the matter of clients not feeling their lawyer is entirely on their side.

The matter of dismissing one's lawyer cropped up. Mine Host has form in this area.

It was suggested that Mine Host may have been blaming the lawyer for Mine Host's failure to not disclose all details of his case. Hmmm.... read the next few posts & see if the lawyer or the client who was out of order.

One of the messier partings was from a Brisbane law firm with a double-barrelled name, quartered in a high rise office tower.... Messy because it took a while.

This firm had been Mine Host's "law firm", giving advice & acting for him in various matters, one such matter being an asset purchase.

This asset came with a few clapped out but registered, vehicles. It was the lawyer's duty to ensure the transfer of Motor Vehicle Registrations.

The asset transferred smoothly, as did the ancillaries, including motor vehicles.

However registrations of these motor vehicles did not transfer to Mine Host. The (annual) registrations subsequently expired without renewal notices having arrived.

Mine Host telephoned to the Department of Transport & enquired as to when he could expect the renewal notices (and new registration sticker to affix to the window).

The Department, upon learning the registration number (on the "Number Plate" affixed to the front and rear of the vehicle) refused to continue discussions, stating the motor vehicles were registered to another party, and the Dept. was not at liberty to discuss the registrations with an "outside party".

Furnishing the Department of Transport with proof of ownership made no difference. The Dept. could discuss the registrations only with the holder of those registrations.

Mine Host contacted the lawer at the firm with the double-barrelled name, explained what had happened & asked for him to sort the matter out.

Nothing changed.

Some time later Mine Host contacted this lawyer to find out why he was not getting satisfaction, and asked to see a copy of the transfer form that had been lodged with the Department of Transport.

Nothing was forthcoming, and whenever Mine Host phoned, the lawyer was not available.

Emails to the lawyer likewise went unanswered.

Two Years later Mine Host gave up emailing the lawyer.

Eventually a sympathetic clerk at the Motor Vehicle Registry informed Mine Host that at time of transfer a submission had been recieved from the seller, but not from the buyer (that would be Mine Host).

Not revealing who held the registrations, the clerk asked Mine Host if he knew a certain person. Mine Host did, the person was a former employee of the vendor. There was no fathomable explanation for why this person held the registrations.

Mine Host made contact with this fellow, who was by now most confused, being stuck with vehicle registrations he knew nothing about.

The renewals had not been delivered in a timely fashion, and the registrations were now in default.

Of course a simple transfer from the current holder to Mine Host, now possible, would have resolved the matter, however the matter should never have arisen in the first place, and the other fellow was in all the trouble that comes with "defaulting" on a government debt.

Mine Host, by now well & truly tired of a lawyer who did not return phone calls or emails, made a most robust phone call to the big name law firm, explaining in a very matter of fact voice the situation he was in, with particular emphasis on the fact that Two Years had now passed, and the situation that an innocent party was in, possibly all due to inaction by the lawyer at the time of transfer.

Another partner took the call and discussed the matter with Mine Host, undertaking to find out what had happened. Some time later this other partner provided Mine Host with the original of the motor vehicle registration transfer form. It clearly showed that the registrations should have been transferred to Mine Host...... It had never been lodged.

Mine Host expressed to this other partner his disappointment with the law firm.

The law firm sent a bill for $660 for forwarding the (unlodged) transfer form.

The Department's debt collection lawyer had been sooled onto the bunny who had been lumbered with the regos. This lawyer, now armed with the original of the transfer form, instructed the Queensland Government to transfer the registrations to Mine Host, expunge the other fellow from the registration records, to expunge all mention of any "default", to cease all action against the other fellow, and to reverse any action that had been taken. Furthermore the department was to immediately notify the hapless fellow of this.

What had happened at time of transfer?
Someone, with only one of two matching forms, had read the back of the vendor's transfer form, and taken his "agent or servant" to be the person to whom the registrations were to be transferred.

Mine Host no longer uses that hyphenated-named law firm.