The Defence Brief

Lawyer jokes are the best Our society flourishes because it is built upon a system of rules that apply to everyone and which make our society a safe and predictable place to do business… at least they do if you know the rules and follow them. We call these rules “the law” and without them there would be no contracts providing us with a framework for our daily exchanges of money for goods, no consumer protections preventing unscrupulous manufacturers selling our children dangerous toys or toxic food, there would be no police to catch those who would seek to harm us because, of course, without laws there would be no rules to ban harming others, instead at best we’d have vigilante justice. With no laws structuring our society, would we have advanced much beyond the squalor and violence of the measly middle ages? These laws we have that provide the structure to our society exist only because lawyers draft them, debate them and enforce them. Shakespeare recognised the importance...

Hertz car hire has some nice cars This morning the postman dropped a letter through my door from a US attorney in the case of Sobel et al v The Hertz Corp et al , which was sent to me by my in-laws who are asking me what they should do about it. Basically, the notice informs customers of Alamo Rent a Car that they could be entitled to compensation for a charge that was erroneously added to a number of bills between 2007 and 2009.  This is called a class action and it seems that my in-laws must actively exclude themselves from the action to avoid having anything to do with it. According to the notice three teams of attorneys have worked tirelessly on this case for four-years and will be claiming fees that come to a little over $1.4M from the defendants.  The total compensation they have negotiated is one $10 voucher off any future car rental taken in the next 18-months per customer. Brilliant, so for a fee of $1.4M they have negotiated a settlement worth $10 to ea...