Eric Baijal is Head of Litigation at Drever and Heddle, a firm operating from offices in Thurso, Kirkwall and Fraserburgh (and another location in early course…). Just under two years ago Eric and his family relocated from Fife to Wick, Caithness. He offers his latest insight into life and law in the land of the dark skies.

Last time, I was discussing some of the challenges of working from these isolated parts. Another challenge is building the team’s knowledge base. A quick look at the Law Society website or in the hundreds of CLT leaflets that arrive by legal post (in fairness the brochures seem to have at last dropped to once a month) will tell you that courses being run in the rural highlands are rare.

There are various options for rural firms. Some firms enjoy CPD Roulette which involves doing what one has always done, learning nothing new (“I’ve always done it is this way”) and hoping most earnestly they are never asked by Drumsheugh to vouch their records.

Others prefer the traditional in-house approach. This often involves sending the trainee to a seminar about a subject they are not interested in, by a speaker they don’t understand, and thereafter asking them to distill the salient points of the seminar to colleagues.

Up to now our approach has been to send our people to where the events are. However, it is expensive both in terms of time and money (often flights and hotels for two nights, to say nothing of delays and chargeable time lost).

We decided to try something new, and so the idea of the Drever & Heddle Litigation Conference was born. This year, I suppose, was a bit of a dry run. We kept the CPD to ourselves. Next year we will probably open up to the firms that pass us work too. Counsel who we instruct in different work areas were very happy to make the flight North. There were, looking back, a couple of big advantages to the day. Firstly, it was good to do CPD as a team (no skipping off at lunchtime for our trainee…) and secondly we were able to dictate the areas that would be covered-which hopefully prevented the usual boredom that settles in at certain conference sessions.

Speaking of CPD, I was at the ICAS Insolvency Practitioners’ Conference in the last couple of weeks. The angels of death put on an event that they can be proud of, and that lawyers can probably learn from. The event was held at a decent venue (Gleneagles; the irony of the insolvency profession holding their flagship conference in one of the country’s most expensive hotels, in the middle of the worst recession in a century, was not lost on me…) and the only blight was the after dinner speaker. Still it was not as bad as two years ago when there was a mass walk out during the speeches of Neil and Christine Hamilton.

Back in the real world I spent a week in Kirkwall during November doing days 4 to 8 of a proof about the extent of a servitude right of access. The case was important to the clients, whose development of adjacent land depends on the outcome of the case. However, the highlight of an otherwise dull week was the Sheriff arriving in the agents room to ask the Pursuer’s agent to pass on his thanks to the Pursuer for the cake she had had delivered to him. Was the other side bribing the Sheriff with cakes? A number of entertaining and ethical issues arose. Should the Sheriff have accepted the cake, far less eaten it (and would we have risked eating a cake from a party we had potentially upset in the previous three days?) In any event, it was all a false alarm because apparently the cake had been a gift from a member of the Sheriff Clerk’s Office who happened to share the Pursuer’s surname.

Back in the office there was further hilarity. Our Managing Partner, Archie Millar has adopted a shameless, but effective strategy in promoting the Drever & Heddle brand. This includes writing various articles and sitting on different committees etc. His latest article was published in the Journal last month. It focused on how Drever & Heddle was preparing for the future. It did make good points. It did make valid predictions about the future for rural firms. However, I did wonder whether some of the punch might have been affected by the decision of the Journal’s graphic design team to surround the article with pink flowers (I noted other articles got prison bars or other similar hard hitting graphics; so am not sure what the pink flowers were to represent?).

I am writing this as the train pulls into Waverley (decided to take the train from Inverness after another near miss with deer on the A9). I have spent the journey down working on written submissions for a proof that is due to conclude this month. While written submissions are undoubtedly very helpful for the Sheriff (particularly emailed versions of proposed findings-in-fact that can be copied and pasted…) I do wonder if they always represent good value for parties in litigation. In this case we had a part heard proof, in which a further two days were reserved to complete the diet. he evidence was completed by 3.00pm on the first day. Both agents were ready, willing and able to proceed with submissions. The Sheriff was not willing to do so. There may be exceptional cases where it is vital to have seen the transcript before beginning submissions. However, in general I think one has to weigh up the significant increase in cost to parties in convening an extra day and preparing written submissions. In a case like this one there is also the issue of court time being wasted.

I have also been preparing for another case due for submissions this month. We had to get the notes in this case because the Sheriff “was resting his eyes to concentrate” during various parts of the evidence. The Sheriff Clerk had a great solution though; she kept blatantly kicking the metal waste paper bin so it acted as an alarm clock. The Sheriff concerned was obviously used to the system…It is embarrassing though; have you ever wondered what clients must think of “us”? I will not name the court concerned; suffice to say for readers that it is probably closer to home for them than I am!

Anyway off up the High Street to 142 now. Didn’t know until recently that counsel has to pay FSL for teas and coffees at 142; now highly suspicious of those that don’t offer a hot drink….

Have a good Christmas and prosperous New Year. See you then God Willing.

Eric