Landmark Cases
Much of what comprises “advice” from the Internet today concerning accident at work claims can be reduced into one cardinal principle: consult a lawyer. This apparently benign command is in reality nothing more than a pathetic hook to snag the reader’s interest in order to fill up a law company’s customer quota. We are not convinced by such moronic subterfuges. Surely, people, and Britons at that, can digest stronger meals of advice than this puny and spurious crumb. Surely, we deserve better, not the least because we can do better.
To practice what we have preached, people must know that there are quite a lot of things they can do in fact in order to win their claims besides having to contact a lawyer. In case they filed accident at work claims, for example, they can read the pertinent laws about these kinds of claims, such as The Health and Safety Act. Beyond that, they can also study by themselves exactly how English jurisprudence works, in particular its prudent and well-settled emphasis on precedents. They can even do more. In searching for precedents, whether in the library or in the Internet, they can qualify their research by focusing on landmark cases, since these are the ones whose binding power dominate the rest and compel them into obedience. The doctrine of stare decisis can be mastered by laymen if they are serious enough. This mastery, however, can only be reached if they did more than just to consult a lawyer.
Identity of Facts
That the law is an incurably technical field is a principle enunciated today by two diverse groups but for complementary reasons. On the one hand, we have the armies of lawyers, who in their interest to keep their field closed and restrictive, for its very imperviousness is the source of its power, proclaiming the study and interpretation of the Law as inevitably technical every day and everywhere. On the other hand, we see the swarms of pusillanimous claimants who slink behind their lawyers’ backs, eagerly agreeing because they are incapable and unwilling to flex their backbones and exercise their privilege and right to legal empowerment. The first cannot bear to make the Law open because their status would concomitantly suffer with such an expansion; the second because their weak constitutions would crack under the weight of the responsibility of acting as real human beings.
We cannot support either. Lawyers and claimants must both make the Law more accessible and known because only then will it cease to be a possibly unjust force. Whether in demanding accident at work claims or whiplash claims, both groups must understand that it is in the interest of the society for them to shred their arrogance and inhibitions.
This is especially true for claimants. They must know the Law to protect themselves from unethical lawyers. For example, they should study just exactly how precedents establish binding power because in a Common Law system such as ours, the courts retrospect in order to reach a decision.
Much of what comprises “advice” from the Internet today concerning accident at work claims can be reduced into one cardinal principle: consult a lawyer. This apparently benign command is in reality nothing more than a pathetic hook to snag the reader’s interest in order to fill up a law company’s customer quota. We are not convinced by such moronic subterfuges. Surely, people, and Britons at that, can digest stronger meals of advice than this puny and spurious crumb. Surely, we deserve better, not the least because we can do better.
To practice what we have preached, people must know that there are quite a lot of things they can do in fact in order to win their claims besides having to contact a lawyer. In case they filed accident at work claims, for example, they can read the pertinent laws about these kinds of claims, such as The Health and Safety Act. Beyond that, they can also study by themselves exactly how English jurisprudence works, in particular its prudent and well-settled emphasis on precedents. They can even do more. In searching for precedents, whether in the library or in the Internet, they can qualify their research by focusing on landmark cases, since these are the ones whose binding power dominate the rest and compel them into obedience. The doctrine of stare decisis can be mastered by laymen if they are serious enough. This mastery, however, can only be reached if they did more than just to consult a lawyer.
Identity of Facts
That the law is an incurably technical field is a principle enunciated today by two diverse groups but for complementary reasons. On the one hand, we have the armies of lawyers, who in their interest to keep their field closed and restrictive, for its very imperviousness is the source of its power, proclaiming the study and interpretation of the Law as inevitably technical every day and everywhere. On the other hand, we see the swarms of pusillanimous claimants who slink behind their lawyers’ backs, eagerly agreeing because they are incapable and unwilling to flex their backbones and exercise their privilege and right to legal empowerment. The first cannot bear to make the Law open because their status would concomitantly suffer with such an expansion; the second because their weak constitutions would crack under the weight of the responsibility of acting as real human beings.
We cannot support either. Lawyers and claimants must both make the Law more accessible and known because only then will it cease to be a possibly unjust force. Whether in demanding accident at work claims or whiplash claims, both groups must understand that it is in the interest of the society for them to shred their arrogance and inhibitions.
This is especially true for claimants. They must know the Law to protect themselves from unethical lawyers. For example, they should study just exactly how precedents establish binding power because in a Common Law system such as ours, the courts retrospect in order to reach a decision.
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