Eight Reasons To Love Tesco Law

August 11, 2009

baked-beans1

Poor old Tesco law. Its failure to secure anything resembling positive PR sees critics lining up to shoot it down faster than the supermarket giant can open new stores. In commiseration, we offer Eight Reasons To Love Tesco Law.

1. It’ll Be Cheap.

Tesco hasn’t got where it is today by charging exorbitant prices for cans of beans. Likewise, as and when it enters the fray and starts offering legal services, the price is very likely to be right.

2. It’ll Be Convenient.

The good old high street firm was fine in the uncrowded society of yesteryear, but now towns are so densely populated that you can’t park anywhere near your local friendly solicitor. Far better to roll up to a vast shopping complex and pop into a supermarket for your legal needs.

3. It’ll Be Fast.

Some people bemoan Tesco’s very existence, saying that it’s killing off small independent shops and ripping the heart out of village communities. Likewise, Tesco law’s naysayers. But have you queued in a village post office lately? It takes forever just to buy a stamp. Far better, in a world where time is money, to zoom into a supermarket and get everything done at once. Besides, high street solicitors aren’t exactly known for their speed.

4. It’ll Be Reliable.

“Unlike most high street solicitors, companies such as [Tesco] have nationally known brand names to protect, which may be a powerful incentive to act in a proper manner.” Thus spoke Sir David Clementi, and isn’t he onto something? Clearly, the all but anonymous high street solicitor has no reason to act with honour and propriety, whereas someone proudly dressed in Tesco regalia is beyond reproach.

5. It’ll Be An Opportunity To Wear A Uniform.

Those of us who took summer shops stacking shelves in supermarkets will never forget the pride we felt upon donning our Tesco clothes. We can only hope that when Tesco law sweeps the land, lawyers will seize the chance to wear the company’s uniform of choice.

6. It’ll Reduce The Opportunity For Harassment.

Since time immemorial lawyers have had the opportunity to become romantically involved with clients. This is unethical. The implementation of total anonymity in lawyer/client dealings will eliminate once and for all the dread scenario of untoward amorousness.

7. It’ll Fund The Professional Negligence Compensation Culture.

Those pesky high street solicitors with their nearly empty pockets, what use are they when a negligence claim lands on the desk? They cost the profession a fortune. Soon, though, they will all be out of business, unable to afford the premiums for professional indemnity insurance. Companies like Tesco will not have this problem.

8. You’ll Never Have To Buy Your Lawyer A Christmas Present Again.

Don’t you just hate it when a lawyer you know does a good job, one you’re so pleased with that you feel duty bound to buy him a bottle of Scotch for Christmas? Tesco law will see the end of this. Because you will never develop a personal relationship with your lawyer, you will never feel obligated to him.

After all, however much you appreciate the sterling efforts of the cashiers at Tesco’s tills, you don’t buy them a Christmas present, do you?

 

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From the inside of the maze, ethically outwards

February 9, 2012

Curious times in the media; strange days at The Times.

Would ‘Dacre Cards‘ – the system of licensing journalists proposed by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre – have prevented the embarrassment now palpable at the Times over the NightJack story?

Times editor James Harding’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry seemed heartfelt and contrite, albeit that the paper’s former long-serving and much-respected lawyer, Alastair Brett, seems to have been, er, rather dropped in it. Clearly, mistakes were made with regard to NightJack by young reporter Patrick Foster who, once he had hacked into NightJack’s account and thus discovered his identity, then embarked on a quest to expose it via legitimate methods. This, as Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC put it, was “rather like working from the inside of the maze out”.

But had Foster been licensed via a Dacre Card, would this unsavoury episode in the Times’s history have been avoided?

We suspect not. A raft of laws were in existence at precisely the time when many News of the World journalists seemed to believe that they were entitled to hack any phone they liked. Those laws forbade them from doing so, and yet made no difference. Aside from the obvious objection to them – that they will squeeze out freelancers and citizen journalists – Dacre Cards would simply amount to something to circumvent.

What is really required is an ethical shake-up, from top to bottom. Society generally – not just journalists – needs a sense that some things are just plain wrong.

Supreme Court on Twitter

February 6, 2012

Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?

We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.

Not so right said Fred

February 2, 2012
fred hat

So Farewell, then, Sir Fred Goodwin.

Now you are just Fred.

Not Right Said Fred, but plain Fred.

The Forfeiture Committee did for you.

No one had heard of it before,

But Dave said it had to act, and it did.

Trouble is that no one knows what to think.

Is it ‘Alas, poor Fred‘,

Or ‘Hurray! Sir Fred is dead!’?

We don’t know.

Do you?

By A. Mob, aged 1,378 and a half.