Shropshire Lawyer April 2022

LAWYER SHROPSHIRE

FEMICIDE, REFUGES AND THE MOON ON A STICK

JESS PHILLIPS Q&A 11TH MARCH

HOW TO SURVIVE A TRAINING CONTRACT

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SPRING 2022 THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE SHROPSHIRE LAW SOCIETY

SHREWSBURY & TELFORD MATERNITY SCANDAL: THE FORGOTTEN MUM SHROP SHIR EL AWYER XX

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CONTENTS

PUBLISHER Benham Publishing Aintree Building, Aintree Way, Aintree Business Park, Liverpool L9 5AQ Tel: 0151 236 4141 Fax: 0151 236 0440 Email: admin@benhampublishing.com Web: www.benhampublishing.com

SALES DIRECTOR Karen Hall

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STUDIO MANAGER Lee Finney MEDIA No. 1991 PUBLISHED Spring 2022 © The Shropshire Law Society Benham Publishing Ltd. LEGAL NOTICE © Benham Publishing.

None of the editorial or photographs may be reproduced without prior written permission from the publishers. Benham Publishing would like to point out that all editorial comment and articles are the responsibility of the originators and may or may not reflect the opinions of Benham Publishing. No responsibility can be accepted for any inaccuracies that may occur, correct at time of going to press. Benham Publishing cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracies in web or email links supplied to us.

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05 President’s Foreword 06 Your Committee 08 The Forgotten Mum 09 Mr Took 10 Femicide, refuges and the Moon on a stick

12 Junior Lawyers Division

DISCLAIMER The Shropshire Law Society welcomes all persons eligible for membership regardless of sex, race, religion, age or sexual orientation.

All views expressed in this publication are the views of the individual writers and not the society unless specifically stated to be otherwise.

All statements as to the law are for discussion between members and should not be relied upon as an accurate statement of the law, are of a general nature and do not constitute advice in any particular case or circumstance.

© John Firth / Royal Shrewsbury Hospital / CC BY-SA 2.0

ACCOUNTS DIRECTOR Joanne Casey

CONTENTS

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14 Screen Saviour 16 How to survive a Training Contract 101

Members of the public should not seek to rely on anything published in this magazine in court but seek qualified Legal Advice.

17 News

COVER INFORMATION Illustration by Adam Francis. Used with permission.

20 Legal Twitter NEXT ISSUES

24 SLS Legal Awards 2022

JULY 2022 OCTOBER 2022 Advertising Anyone wishing to advertise in the Shropshire Lawyer please contact Catherine McCarthy before the copy deadline. 0151 236 4141 catherine@benhampublishing.com Editorial Anyone wishing to submit editorial for publication in the Shropshire Lawyer please contact info@shropshirelawsociety.com.

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30 Interest

www.shropshirelawsociety.com info@shropshirelawsociety.com

@ShropLawsoc

SHROP SHIR EL AWYER 3

INTRODUCTION

President’s Charity 2022

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n my capacity as a family lawyer, I have seen firsthand the impact that domestic abuse has on women – undermining their confidence, their self-esteem and safety. Yet funding for Domestic Abuse Services has consistently been cut and the services stretched beyond breaking point.

This crisis only became more acute during the pandemic.

Refuge reported that between April 2020 and February 2021 calls and contacts rose by an average of 61%.

To that end, during my year as President, my chosen charity is the Shropshire Domestic Abuse Service. Throughout the year, proceeds from our events will be donated to them.

Below is set out what vital work Shropshire Domestic Abuse Service fulfils in the local area.

ACCOMMODATION SERVICE Properties based in Shropshire only – accessible by anyone living in the UK We have a large Women’s Refuge, and smaller dispersed properties enabling us to accommodate male victims as well as larger families. We are opening a complex needs accommodation service for women only later in 2022, to provide bespoke specialist support using a strength-based model.

OUTREACH SERVICE Accessible to anyone living in Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin We offer one to one support, advice, advocacy, guidance and education to anyone living within the County of Shropshire. We offer a blended approach to support depending on the preferences and needs of the survivor. We can meet face to face or virtually, we offer telephone and email support. We will attend appointments and meetings if requested and with our internal Independent Domestic Violence Advocates (IDVA) we will attend all Court hearings both in Criminal and Family Courts.

PERPETRATOR PROVISION We work in partnership with The Richmond Fellowship who deliver a voluntary perpetrator programme. They provide the programme and we support the partners of the men attending the group. Currently the provision is only open to male perpetrators with female victims/partners. Children and Young people can also be offered support either via the Richmond Fellowship or us if already working with SDAS.

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We are a specialist domestic abuse service who are funded and commissioned in various ways to help support, educate and empower all affected by domestic abuse that currently live in or need to flee to the County of Shropshire. We work in a trauma-informed, survivor-led way and in a multiagency arena allowing a full holistic package of support to be available and provided. We support ALL victims of domestic abuse irrespective of age, gender, sexuality, religion, or ethnicity.

CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE’S (CYP) SERVICE Internal referrals only The CYPs team support specific CYP from families that our Outreach and Accommodation service refer to them.

GROUPS Shropshire mainly though we support Telford & Wrekin with their provision We run weekly education groups around domestic abuse and its impact on themselves, their children, on understanding the dynamics of domestic abuse, rebuilding their self-esteem and worth as well as signposting and referring to other non-domestic abuse related courses and groups being run by other agencies. Delivered face to face and virtually, with evening groups offered also.

SURVIVOR NETWORK Accessible in Shropshire only but all Survivors welcome We have a Survivors of Domestic Abuse (SODA) network that we support virtually as well as face to face. We offer “walk & talk” sessions and weekly catch ups, plus talks to organisations and groups from people with lived experience.

To access this service: Referral Line: 0300 303 1191 (Open Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm) Email: sdas@shropsdas.org.uk Web: shropsdas.org.uk

INTRODUCTION

President’s Foreword Spring 2022

W

elcome to the first issue of Shropshire Lawyer, our new quarterly magazine. The purpose of the magazine is threefold: First, to highlight the exceptional work that lawyers and support staff do throughout Shropshire week in and week out; second, to share some of the lighter sides of legal practice; third, to offer a forum for the sharing of news.

In the first issue, we have a fascinating and sometimes harrowing piece by Beth Heath about her work in connection with the Telford and Shropshire Maternity scandal. The five-year investigation by Donna Ockenden and her landmark report which has recently been released concluded that there were “repeated failings” at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust over 20 years which led to the deaths of 20 babies and nine mothers, and 1,592 clinical incidents. Beth’s plea is simply – that Mum is not forgotten.

There is a reflective article by Andy Howarth about a mental disorder which falls between the stools of several areas of legislation and Abi Murray gives new Trainees tips on how to survive your training contract.

Gemma Hughes

On the lighter side, have a look at the hilarious piece by Mike Lim on the travails and triumphs of an IT guy, and browse the smorgasbord of wit and wisdom in our feature on Legal Twitter.

The news: as well as local firms rightly trumpeting the achievements of their staff, we have a report on Jess Phillips’ Q & A at the Mercure in Telford in March; an account of our Quiz night at the Mytton and Mermaid and the announcement of our forthcoming Legal Awards celebrating excellence in Shropshire.

We hope that this first issue will have something in it to interest, amuse and stimulate you. Please send in your own articles for inclusion in future editions. We want Shropshire Lawyer to reflect the whole breadth and depth of legal talent in Shropshire Telford and Mid Wales.

Finally, I want to personally thank all of our contributors to the magazine who have made the first edition so engaging, interesting, poignant and entertaining. I hope you agree.

With all best wishes, Gemma Hughes President

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COMMITTEE

Your Committee Hannah Lowe Vice President & Treasurer, Terry Jones solicitors, Abbey House, Abbey Foregate, Shrewsbury, SY2 6BH. Hannahl@terry-jones.co.uk

Praveen Chaudhari Lanyon Bowdler solicitors, Kendal Court, Ironmasters Way, Overdale, Telford, TF3 4DT. praveen.chaudhari@lblaw.co.uk

Jennifer Richards Honorary Secretary, PCB Solicitors, Trevithick House, Stafford Park 4, Telford, TF3 3BA. Jennifer.Richards@pcblaw.co.uk

Lucy Speed Lanyon Bowdler Solicitors, Chapter House North, Abbey Lawn, Abbey Foregate, Shrewsbury, SY2 5DE. lucy.speed@lblaw.co.uk

Robert Adams Wace Morgan solicitors, 21 St Mary’s St, Shrewsbury, SY1 1ED. robert.adams@wmlaw.co.uk

Gemma Williams Lanyon Bowdler solicitors, The Business Quarter, Eco Park Road, Ludlow, SY8 1FD. Gemma.Williams2@lblaw.co.uk

Lizzie Hughes Wace Morgan solicitors, 21 St Mary’s St, Shrewsbury, SY1 1ED. Lizzie.hughes@wmlaw.co.uk David Raymont MFG Solicitors, Padmore House, Hall Park Way, Telford. david.raymont@mfgsolicitors.com Jenny Bromwich Shropshire Family Law, 47 Whitehall St, Shrewsbury, SY2 5AD. j.bromwich@shropshirefamilylaw.com Mark Turner FBC Manby Bowdler, Routh House, Hall Court, Hall Park Way, Telford, TF3 4NJ. M.Turner@fbcmb.co.uk Samantha Roberts FBC Manby Bowdler, Juneau House, Sitka Drive, Shrewsbury Business Park, Shrewsbury, SY2 6LG. samantha.roberts@fbcmb.co.uk Danny Smith PCB Solicitors, Cypress Centre, Shrewsbury Business Park, Shrewsbury. danny.smith@pcblaw.co.uk

Victoria Pugh Hatchers solicitors, Welsh Bridge1, Frankwell, Shrewsbury, SY3 8JY v.pugh@hatchers.co.uk Christine Rimmer Hatchers solicitors, Welsh Bridge1, Frankwell, Shrewsbury, SY3 8JY C.Rimmer@hatchers.co.uk Hannah Harrison NFU Mutual, Mutual House, Shrewsbury Business Park, Sitka Drive, Shrewsbury Hannah.Harrison@nfu.org.uk Zoe Smith Terry Jones solicitors, Abbey House, Abbey Foregate, Shrewsbury, SY2 6BH Zoe.Smith@terry-jones.co.uk Katie Hughes-Beddows Aaron and Partners, Lakeside House, Oxon Business Park, Shrewsbury, SY3 5HJ Katie.Hughes-Beddows@aaronandpartners.com

Samantha Millea PCB Solicitors, Trevithick House, Stafford Park 4, Telford, TF3 3BA. samantha.millea@pcblaw.co.uk

Hannah Fynn Aaron and Partners, Lakeside House, Oxon Business Park, Shrewsbury, SY3 5HJ Hannah.Fynn@aaronandpartners.com

Charlotte Nutting Roy Thornes solicitors, Crossway, 156 Great Charles Street, Queensway, Birmingham, B3 3HN. CharlotteNutting@roythornes.co.uk

Nicola Davies Agri Advisor, Glynton House, Henfaes Lane, Trallwng, Powys, SY21 7BE Nicola@agriadvisor.co.uk;

Debbie Thomas-White Telford & Wrekin Council.

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COMMITTEE

Meet your Committee Robert Adams If you weren’t a lawyer, what would you be?

Probably a footballer but bear in mind I am from Stoke and I am so old Stanley Matthews was still playing there but sadly I never got to see him play. If I wasn’t a lawyer with hindsight anything that involved lots of world travel and good beaches and sunshine.

What were your reasons for getting into law?

I won’t lie – money, but the biggest lie was I was told there was money in the law. I was 10 years too late!

What career advice would you give to your younger self?

Think long and hard about what you want to spend your working life doing before jumping in too quickly.

What’s the worst career advice you have received from someone?

Go into the law – you will be retired by the time you’re 55 with your feet up!

Robert Adams

If you could change one thing in your job, what would it be?

A more comfy chair.

What’s the Best/Worst career decision you’ve ever made?

Best career decision was to move to Shropshire 20+ years ago – worst decision was not moving to Shropshire before then.

What’s the best bit about your job?

Never knowing day to day what is coming and the diverse and varied clients you deal with – all makes life constantly interesting.

Dream Dinner guests (alive or dead)?

Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe and Ian Botham.

Favourite quote/film/book?

Quote: “a lie unchallenged becomes the truth” Film: Casablanca Book: Great Expectations Greatest life achievement?

Getting here at all to the happy place I am in.

Robert Adams, is a Partner in the Family Department at Wace Morgan solicitors and is a former President of Shropshire Law Society.

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THE FORGOTTEN MUM THE SHREWSBURY AND TELFORD HOSPITAL MATERNITY SCANDAL

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s most of you will be aware, in 2017 Jeremy Hunt (Health Secretary at the time) commissioned a review into 23 baby deaths at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust. This review has grown exponentially in the last few years and now encompasses 1,862 families.

There has been a huge focus in the media on the Donna Ockenden review into the number of babies stillborn or who die in the hours or days after their birth. There are also a large number of children who have suffered life-changing injuries as a result of the care provided at or around the time of their birth.

This is a tragedy beyond words or comprehension. This should have been one of the happiest times of these families’ lives but instead they are left devastated.

In all of this, however, Mum is often forgotten.

The Clinical Negligence team at Lanyon Bowdler are currently representing over 100 families in maternity claims against the Trust. Of these claims, just under 20% relate solely to the injuries Mum has suffered during the labour or delivery of her child. These injuries may be physical, psychiatric or more often than not, both. Heartbreakingly, there are also cases where Mum has died before ever being able to hold her baby.

As any parent will know, the moment you have your first child, is the moment when your needs are forever secondary to the bundle of joy in your arms. Having been reassured by medical professionals that the symptoms they are reporting are normal post-delivery, these women put their own needs aside and focus on being the best mum possible.

However, I have a number of cases where these injuries aren’t ‘normal’. It is common for a first-time Mum to suffer some sort of tear or graze during a vaginal delivery, or require an episiotomy (essentially a cut to make the opening wider). Most of the time these tears, which can vary in severity cannot be avoided. However, I have cases where a tear was caused by failings in the use of forceps.

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Shrewsbury Hospital The majority of the time when a woman tears during childbirth, the key thing is ensuring that the tear is properly assessed, graded and repaired.

I have a number of cases where the tear has been incorrectly diagnosed as a lower degree tear and therefore the repair performed was not sufficient. In the most severe cases, women can then suffer from lifelong faecal incontinence as a result. Whilst secondary repair surgery is possible, the success rates aren’t that high.

As well as physical injuries, women can suffer psychiatric injuries as a result of the traumatic birth or the loss of their baby. Women should be offered support. However, they consistently report the feeling of being abandoned post the death of their child with no bereavement counselling offered.

In some circumstances, the Trust’s actions have been far worse than not offering support. At times the attitude towards these grieving mums has been abhorrent. Mums have been blamed for the loss or injury to their child and the guilt that these women have carried with them as a result is unimaginable.

In the immediate aftermath of their baby’s death, Mums describe the horror of being put on the postnatal wards with other Mums and their babies. The new-born cry, a constant reminder of their loss.

The true extent of the maternity scandal at the Trust continues to unfold but my plea is that we do not forget the mums in all this and ensure they get the support needed.

Beth Heath is Partner – Head of Clinical/ Medical Negligence Team at Lanyon Bowdler solicitors

© John Firth / Royal Shrewsbury Hospital / CC BY-SA 2.0

FEATURE

BRIEF ENCOUNTERS

MR TOOK

evidence-based treatment is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

And as with any talking treatment, you can lock a patient up from now till Kingdom Come but if they don’t want to engage with it, you’re wasting your time. You can lead a hoarder to the doctor, but you can’t make him rethink.

T

Something small, quick and mouse-coloured skittered past my left shoe. I wished, with hindsight, that I’d gaffertaped the bottoms of my trouser legs as the social worker had advised.

he door swung open as I knocked, but only far enough for someone who wasn’t too fond of pies to squeeze past. I sucked in my Fray Bentos paunch and slid myself into the hallway, calling out ‘Hello?’ in my best professional voice.

The walls on either side of the entrance were piled to the ceiling with newspapers and pizza boxes arranged in tidy columns: One column was only Shropshire Stars; the next only Chronicles; the next only Dominos. I pulled a Chronicle out at random: it was six years old and the headline read ‘Local School Has Three Teachers Named Dave’. I pushed it back and the structure wobbled unnervingly.

The hall gave onto what must once have been a kitchen. Not every inch of the lino was covered in dismantled machinery; the bits that were clear would possibly have been enough for the floor of a phone box. Over the top of a gutted crankshaft my client’s head bobbed up. He waved a sheaf of papers at me: ‘This report says I’ve got twenty motorbikes in here! Absolute rubbish – I’ve never had more than twelve.

Plus the lawnmowers of course.’

Mr Took was a man in his late fifties. He had lived until two years ago with his mother, who had been both his carer and a kind of human shield against the world. Since she had died, the wheels, so to speak, had started coming off. I gazed mournfully at the empty front forks of a Triumph 850 Tiger Sport.

My client was sitting on a camp chair wedged up against the gas cooker. All four rings were lit, and as he gesticulated, the psychiatric report brushed perilously close to the naked flames. ‘I told the bloody doctor I was going to sort it all out’, he complained, more offended than angry. ‘How can I get on top of it if I’m in the bloody hospital all the bloody while?’

I didn’t blame the authorities for sectioning Mr Took. The National Assistance Act s.47 used to allow for the removal to a safe place of persons who were ‘unable to devote to themselves, and are not receiving from other persons, proper care and attention.’ But it was rarely used and was replaced in 2015 by the Care Act, which takes a much less paternalistic approach. So when a person is living in conditions which go well beyond bohemian eccentricity but aren’t quite at the pitch of insanitary squalor which would animate the Environmental Health Authority, there aren’t many powers available.

Mr Took certainly didn’t welcome intervention in his life.

There was brown paper taped over his windows and a sign on the front door saying ‘NO CALERS OF ANY KIND’.

To arrange my visit I had to ring his land-line eleven times before he answered. All he wanted was to be left alone.

The next day the Tribunal did discharge him, finding that although he needed help, detention for hospital treatment wasn’t it. Mr Took told the judge he would be ‘brutal’ in clearing enough of the clutter to allow a swift exit in the event of a fire. After months of agonising, he managed to fill three Bags for Life and put them outside the back door. A couple of weeks later they were back inside. ■ Andy Howarth is a Solicitor in the Mental Health Department at GHP Legal solicitors.

Mr Took was on ‘section 17 leave’ – that is, he was still detained under the Mental Health Act, but he was allowed home for a few hours or days at the discretion of his consultant psychiatrist. This is often referred to as ‘testing out’; in practice it means that the patient can still be required to accept medication against his or her will, and if things go badly wrong he or she can be whisked back into hospital at a moment’s notice. Assuming somebody else isn’t in their bed.

So although Mr Took was at home, he was still liable to be detained, and he had to return to hospital the next day for his Tribunal hearing. He wanted the Tribunal to discharge him and I thought we had a pretty good case: Yes, he had a mental disorder – hoarding these days is recognised in both the ICD and DSM systems – but was there a hospital treatment that would make it better? No. The NICE guidelines (which still lump hoarding in with OCD) say that the one SHROP SHIR EL AWYER 9

FEATURE

Jess Phillips MP

FEMICIDE, REFUGES AND THE MOON ON A STICK JESS PHILLIPS Q&A 11TH MARCH

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he day after she had read out in Parliament the names of the 127 women killed in the UK over the past 12 months where a man was charged or convicted, Jess Phillips MP came to talk to SLS members at the Mercure Hotel in Telford.

Turning to her work as an MP, Ms Phillips talked about her role in the drafting of the Domestic Abuse Bill, which received Royal Assent last year. ‘It’s not my Bill, it’s the Government’s’, she pointed out, ‘but it’s got more of me in it than it has of the Government!’

It was a grim rainy day, but the Yardley MP was on ebullient form. ‘People ask me why I’m so cheerful’, she grinned.

‘When I worked in the refuge we had a proper laugh.’

It was four years’ work, and she described how she became a party to Gina Miller’s Supreme Court action to oppose the attempted prorogation of Parliament in 2019 partly because, had Boris Johnson succeeded, all legislation would have fallen, and work on the Bill would have had to start again from scratch. Ms Phillips commented ruefully that, after Theresa May stepped down as PM, the Bill wasn’t seen by the Government as a priority: In opposing Miller’s action, the Government told the court that the prorogation ‘wouldn’t affect any really important legislation’.

Ms Phillips began by describing her own feminist upbringing: ‘[as a child] I went to Women’s Liberation Playgroup, which was a feminist collective set up by my Mom*… we would make things like banners for the women at Greenham Common’. By the time she had her own first child, she was working with refugee women from Sierra Leone and Rwanda. ‘I could make myself sound really worthy’, she said with her trademark down-to-earthness, ‘but I set up Stay and Plays for the women partially because it meant I could go to work and also take my child with me.’

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The part of the Bill that Ms Phillips is proudest of, she told our audience, is that there is now a statutory duty to provide refuge accommodation in every Local Authority

FEATURE

area. ‘Previously,’ she explained, ‘the only two things Local Authorities had to provide were adult social care and bins. I just wanted women to be as important as bins.’

What does she regret about the Bill? ‘There’s nothing about welfare,’ she told us, ‘very little about the availability of housing, and there’s nothing about rape and sexual violence [when] 56% of all sexual violence happens in a domestic setting.’ She also regrets that ‘it doesn’t say the word ‘woman’ in the Bill, anywhere.’

Ms Phillips lamented the cumbersome parliamentary process that produces legislation such as the Domestic Abuse Bill: ‘When you wake up and you can no longer smoke in the pub, it feels to you like it happened overnight… [but] that piece of legislation took ten and a half years!’

And the only pub in the country where you’re still allowed to smoke? ‘The one in Parliament’.

Ms Phillips was scathing about the family courts, particularly in Public Law Children Act proceedings, which she described as too often ‘colluding with perpetrators’. Perhaps her greatest scorn, however, was directed at the practice of sending female victims of domestic abuse on courses run by the voluntary sector as a ‘tick-box exercise’ if they want to keep their children. She sees this as part of a pattern of looking for faults in the abused rather than in the abuser: ‘You have to be the perfect victim… you have to have never done anything wrong’.

The fact that 1% of rape cases results in someone being charged – ‘not convicted; charged’ – is a source of real anger. Ms Phillips described the case of a woman in her constituency who was raped by a total stranger while out running on a canal towpath. The police seized her mobile phone. ‘What is it that could possibly be on your phone that could prove that he hadn’t raped you?’

said, seek out vulnerable women over whom they can exert control: ‘Nobody chooses to be abused.’

On the second question she was if anything even more adamant. She simply did not believe that women made vexatious rape allegations; however, ‘even if 50% of rape allegations are false, that means that 49% of rapists are getting off scot free.’

Finally, a member of the audience asked whether Ms Phillips was confident that domestic abuse services would be properly funded under a Labour Government. ‘I don’t feel confident that anyone will fund it to the level I want,’ she replied with no hesitation at all, ‘because what I want is the Moon on a stick.’ *** The SLS Committee would like to thank Jess Phillips for giving freely of her time to come and speak to us.

Everybody who attended came away knowing more and thinking harder about domestic abuse and male violence against women and girls. Ms Phillips did not take any fee for her appearance, accepting only a bag of Doritos and a cup of tea. The event raised £600 for Shropshire Domestic Abuse Service. *In her book Everywoman, Jess Phillips addresses the vexed question of ‘Mom’: ‘Every time I write about being a mother, I receive comments about my use of the term ‘mom’. Just so you know, it’s not only the Americans who use it; in Birmingham and the wider West Midlands we say ‘mom’ too’. ■

As a woman in rape proceedings, ‘you are not a party to the proceedings… you are a suspect in the case that you have brought.’ *** After Wendy Bulman of Shropshire Domestic Abuse Service had spoken about the service which she manages – painting a vivid picture of the sometimes unrealistic demands placed on the organisation by the Local Authority – SLS President Gemma Hughes invited questions from the floor.

Jess Phillips and Wendy Bulman.

There was a vigorous debate, as members quizzed Ms Phillips on the merits of training vulnerable women to avoid serially getting into relationships with abusive men, and the prevalence of unfounded rape allegations.

On the first question, Ms Phillips was adamant: ‘Abused women have literally nothing to learn; the people who have to learn are the men who are abusing them.’ Abusers, she

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JUNIOR LAWYERS DIVISION

Meet your Committee Shropshire JLD Emma Rigby – Chair Emma graduated from Cardiff University with a first class honours in Criminology before studying the Graduate Diploma in Law and Legal Practice Course at the University of Law, Chester. She has worked at Watson Watson Solicitors on the Shrewsbury Business Park for the last 5 ½ years, qualifying into Commercial Property and currently specialising in Corporate/Commercial.

Emma has been involved with the Junior Lawyers for a number of years, organising a range of social and informative events and networking opportunities. After a quiet couple of years with the pandemic Emma hopes to see Shropshire JLD expand over the next 12 months.

Chloe Turner Chloe is a 5th year Solicitor Apprentice at FBC Manby Bowdler. She started with FBCMB in 2017 in their Residential Conveyancing department and now works in their busy Family department assisting in matters relating to divorce, finances and children whilst studying with BPP University working towards qualification. Outside of work she spends her time playing netball, training her rescue dog, Pixie, and renovating her 1930’s property.

Megan Price Megan obtained a First Class Degree in Law with Mathematics at Aberystwyth University in 2017 and then went on to study for the Legal Practice Course at BBP University in Manchester.

Megan joined FBC Manby Bowdler as a Paralegal in the Wills, Probate & Lifetime Planning Department in September 2017, began her training contract in September 2018 and qualified as a Solicitor in September 2020 within the Agricultural & Rural Services Team.

Megan specialises in land and rural property law and has experience in the sale, purchase, secured lending, leases, easements, covenants, first registrations of title and other associated matters.

Rachel Chambers Rachel is a solicitor at mfg Solicitors LLP working in the Civil Litigation department and specialising in Commercial Litigation. Rachel studied law and criminology at the University of Lancaster before going on to complete the Legal Practice Course at Staffordshire University. Rachel joined mfg 12 SH ROP SH IR E L AW YER

Solicitors LLP as a paralegal in 2018 before commencing her training contract with the firm, and qualifying in March 2021.

In her free time, Rachel can be found spending time with her friends and family, walking her dog Poppy or travelling.

Victoria Wall Victoria Wall is a solicitor at mfg Solicitors specialising in contentious probate work.

Victoria grew up in Ludlow and studied at the University of Birmingham, and the University of Law in Birmingham before training and qualifying as a solicitor in September 2020. In her spare time she and her partner are converting a horsebox into a mobile bar, which they hope will be ready for some of the local food and drink festivals this year!

Tori McHale Tori studied LLB Law at the University of Reading and achieved her LL.M LPC combined Legal Practice Course and Masters in Law at the University of Law in Birmingham. She went on to complete her training contract at a firm in Telford, qualifying as a Solicitor in October 2017. Tori is also qualified in HR, with a post-graduate diploma in Human Resource Management (Level 7 CIPD accredited) which she obtained in June 2021. Tori joined Aaron & Partners in August 2020 as a Solicitor in the Employment Team.

As a keen networker, Tori can be found attending local events, contributing to employment law articles and presenting on topical changes at Aaron & Partners seminars.

Rachael Stokes Rachael was born and bred in Shropshire. She studied her A-Levels at Shrewsbury Sixth Form, before attending the University of Chester to study Law with Criminology. Rachael returned to Chester to study at the University of Law and completed her LPC in 2015. Rachael joined PCB Solicitors in December 2015.

Rachael has been a member of Wem YFC for the past 10 years, holding various positions in the club including Chairman. Rachael has also held a position in Shropshire YFC over the last couple of years. She has now decided to take a back seat in YFC which has enabled her to spend more time with family and friends.

On weekends, Rachael can often be found working at weddings or organising charity events, with the most recent

JUNIOR LAWYERS DIVISION

event being a Charity Luncheon raising £2,100 for Linden Davies Cancer Ward in Shrewsbury. With any spare time Rachael gets, she enjoys going for walks around Grinshill or Colemere just to watch the world go by.

Jamie Porter Jamie graduated from the University of Wolverhampton in 2007 after studying law.

He then joined a financial institution to assist in the administration of mortgage books. In 2010 Jamie qualified as an accredited legal representative whereupon he assisted in representing clients in criminal matters at the investigation stage. Jamie worked for a representation agency doing this work before becoming independent and taking instructions from law firms across the country.

In 2016 Jamie studied his LPC and Masters (in civil litigation) at the University of Law in Birmingham where he achieved a distinction. During the course of his training, Jamie has built on his advocacy skills by undertaking and completing his

higher rights of audience (civil) qualification which grants him the right to appear in matters before the High Court and beyond.

In his spare time, Jamie enjoys reading and watching sports.

Paramveer Gill Since April 2020 Paramveer has worked as an in-house real estate lawyer at national house builder Countryside Properties PLC. Prior to going in-house, Paramveer worked as a paralegal for a regional firm in Birmingham, where he later trained to be a solicitor. He qualified in 2018, then soon after moved onto work for Wace Morgan in Shrewsbury until March 2020.

Having been raised in Telford and previously worked in Shrewsbury, Paramveer now lives in Shifnal. He enjoys keeping fit in his spare time by road running or long countryside walks, however at present the majority of his personal time is spent running after his newborn baby daughter.

Calling all Junior Lawyers

T

he Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) is a division of the Law Society, but with an independent voice.

The JLD provides an opportunity to network and connect with other junior lawyers to discuss issues of concern, and to benefit from training and advice.

What is a Junior Lawyer?

Junior Lawyers are solicitor apprentices, LPC students, LPC graduates, paralegals, trainee solicitors and solicitors up to five years' qualified.

The JLD provides help and advice for those entering the legal profession and who are in the early stages of their career as a solicitor. We are the Shropshire group of the JLD – a friendly group of young lawyers that can offer support and networking opportunities where you can learn from the experience of others in the same area as you.

Over the course of the next 12 months we are aiming to meet bi-monthly/quarterly for a range of networking and social events as well as educational talks and workshops.

Past events organised by Shropshire JLD include networking drinks, curry nights, mortgage/financial planning and pension workshops, wine tasting, easter egg hunts, updates on the legal market and quiz nights.

The next event will be held at Timber Jacks in Shrewsbury on Thursday 12 May at 6pm. It will be an opportunity to meet and network with other junior lawyers whilst having fun! Following this, we are arranging a summer drinks event

with other local young professionals (in the finance/tax/ insurance/property/planning sectors) to give our members the opportunity to build their professional network early on in their career.

We are always open to event suggestions – if you/your firm has any particular training needs, or if you know a local charity or business who would like to team up for an event, please do get in touch.

Membership to Shropshire JLD is £25 for the year, with the majority of events being free of charge if you are a member.

To enquire about becoming a member, or to be added to our mailing list, please email shropshirejld@watsonwatson.com.

We hope to hear from you soon!

SHROP SHIR EL AWYER 13

ARTICLE

SCREEN SAVIOUR

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN ACCIDENTAL IT GUY

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i, I’m the Accidental IT Guy. You may know me from such IT solutions as: "Close it down and open it up again"; "log out and log back in again"; sign out and sign back in again"; "turn it off and turn it back on again"; and – if all else fails - "turn it off, leave it for 5 minutes, then turn it back on again".

I had been moderately content in my quiet, uneventful job at a Shropshire law firm. Then one day, I was called in to see the IT Manager and the Managing Partner. They needed someone to fill in on the IT Service Desk immediately. Would I cover that for a few months? So what exactly did your mildmannered, unassuming, humble Legal Document Developer learn when he had his chance at the big-time in the world of IT HelpDesks? What insights did I gain when I moved from being someone who called the HelpDesk to being the one answering the calls? Stay with me and find out....

1. Law is incredibly diverse, so is IT Not all lawyers are interchangeable. For example, at LB, we have Stephen Scully, who is a great Associate in Crime.

BUT… if I was moving house, and Stephen rocked Stephen Scully, Associate up as my conveyancer, I Solicitor Advocate, would be on the phone Shrewsbury. Distinction in immediately cancelling the his Conveyancing exam. removals van, and trying to build back bridges with all the neighbours who I told where to go when I thought that I would never have to see them again.

Conversely, were I in the dock, Stephen turning up would be a green light for the stretched limo and champagne.

more than enough clients to talk to. Of course, when we sit in IT, it is blindingly obvious when people have called with something trivial, and equally, there are those who have sat on a serious issue for ages, and you wish that they had mentioned it at the very start, and saved everyone a lot of grief. Irrespective of this, the one constant is that solicitors and their staff only ever call when they don’t feel that they have any other option. By this stage, the best-case scenario is that they are just frustrated. Worst case is that they are frustrated and stressed because they have a deadline to meet in the next 10 minutes. I soon figured out that not treating every caller as a complete idiot made me a lot of friends very quickly.

3. Lawyers really benefit from being nice I hate to break it to you, but I can bet my bottom dollar that you are not Lady Hale in disguise. I do not doubt your legal prowess, but in reality you make a living as much from the fact that you are pleasant and courteous to your clients as from what your learnt at law school. So, if you can be pleasant enough to a paying client, you are capable of being courteous to the HelpDesk. A normal human would find it impossible to be horrid to people who were nice to them, and subconsciously will go the extra mile to help.

Cordial relations with the HelpDesk may not be in the job description, but making a little bit of an effort, will make life a whole lot less unpleasant.

4. Belittling people is counter-productive Just a corollary of the two previous points. But tempting as it may be at times, is that transient feeling of superiority really worth the ill-feeling that will linger until one party leaves the firm? Obviously this works both ways, so if anyone has ever felt that I have been sneery, then I would truly want to say that it would be entirely unintentional, and I would only be hurting myself. As the Daddy Balloon said to his son: “you've let me down, you've let your mum down, but most of all you've let yourself down.”

Likewise, being good in one part of IT (Microsoft Office), does not mean that you have any idea about all the backend stuff. No-one can be a dab hand at Pivot Tables or Word styles, yet also be able to keep all those servers in tip-top running order. Add in mobile devices etc, and you soon realise that, like law, you can have jacks-of-all-trades, but for some things, only a specialist will do. So, unless you have an IT department that runs into the 100s, you cannot expect the IT department to be able to fix everything without some outside help.

5. We are incredibly lucky to have an in-house IT Help Desk Not all firms can hit a sweet-spot – size-wise – where it is viable to have an in-house IT HelpDesk. It is not just the immediacy of the support and being able to walk down a corridor to sort out a problem in person, the big benefit is that we all have a common purpose – if some malware takes down the firm, it’s not just the solicitors that go down, the IT department go down with them. There is a far stronger imperative to work collaboratively.

2. People don’t contact IT just for a chat There is plenty of evidence out there that people suffering from loneliness make more GP visits. It is equally obvious that we are not medically qualified and (hopefully) you have

6. I marvel everyday at how much IT actually works Growing up at a time when computers were programmed using punch cards, I could not have imagined just how much computers would worm their way into every aspect of our

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And it’s not just hardware failing, I always imagine that all these different programs will talk to each other in the same computer language, but will each have their own idiosyncrasies (viz. you say potato, I say potato). So, when I think about how many times each and every one of us logs on, and everything aligns, the question should be “why do my emails arrive in my Inbox?” rather than “why hasn’t this emailed arrived yet?”.

Put another way, if the rate of dubious court decisions was as low as the failure rate in your IT system, the justice system would be cock-a-hoop.

8. Who are the real heroes? © PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

lives. To make all these things work together requires a series of background steps to be followed that I now realise look positively Byzantine compared to a County Court trial. It’s only when one small part go awry that you realize just how vital it is to the whole system.

Saves your life

Saves your file

Mike Lim is a Legal Document Developer/IT Saviour at Lanyon Bowdler solicitors

7. Cyberattacks are only too real Of course, this is merely stating the obvious that all of us know. So why bring it up yet again? If you are like me, you have to downplay the threat of cyberattacks in your own mind if not we would all become paralysed by paranoia.

“Surely these things happen to other people, but not to little, insignificant me?”. Sadly, just 10 minutes checking the firm’s email filters soon disavowed me of that notion. And it wasn’t just the scale, it was the severity of the attacks that is so alarming. For the avoidance of doubt, some of these attacks have the potential to lead onto existential threats to your firm, and by extension the livelihoods of you and your colleagues. Undoubtedly, a law firm is big enough to present itself as tempting target for hackers. Remember when your teacher used to admonish you with “you wouldn't do that in front of your parents”. Well, the opposite applies here, do whatever you want at home, just don’t do it on your firm’s IT system.

Want to advertise in Shropshire Lawyer?

To advertise in Shropshire Lawyer, please call Catherine McCarthy our Business Features Editor on 0151 236 4141 or email catherine@benhampublishing.com

SHROP SHIR EL AWYER 15

ARTICLE

HOW TO SURVIVE A TRAINING CONTRACT 101

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o you’ve completed your undergraduate degree and finished your LPC (maybe even a GDL along the way!) After countless letters and applications you finally receive the confirmation that you have been given a training contract.

What now? When I began my TC in April 2020 I thought I was fully clued in on what was to come, but here are some top pointers to help you through the process: 1. Read through your training pack When you commence your training contract, your firm should send you a training pack which outlines the objectives for your training together with some useful materials. Get familiar with these as any initial questions you may have will probably be answered within the pack.

Putting everything in a folder will keep you organised and is to hand if you ever need to refer back to any documents.

In addition to this, make sure you print off the Practice Skills Standards. Keeping these to hand will ensure you are meeting the objectives set by the SRA during your period of recognised training.

2. Keep up to date with your training diary Probably one of the most important things to remember.

I learnt the hard way when I recorded my entries by hand during a busy period within the department and spent what felt like a whole day entering these into my electronic diary. Setting aside 5 minutes to enter the task into the diary and reviewing this on a weekly basis will save you so much time and keep you up to date. The last thing you want is having a meeting with your supervisor and you’re missing some entries.

3. Book your PSC dates early Within your training pack you should receive some information regarding the Professional Skills Course (PSC).

The course is made up of three core modules (Financial and Business Skills, Client Care and Professional Standards and Advocacy and Communication Skills) and four electives of your choice which must be undertaken prior to qualifying as a Solicitor. Most modules are assessed on attendance and there is one exam for the Business and Finance Skills session.

The courses get booked up extremely quickly so booking them in sooner rather than later secures your place and leaves time in case you need to rearrange. Its also advisable to complete your business module first off as if you happen to fail the exam first time round you can resit in plenty of time prior to qualification.

4. Get to know your fellow trainees/The firms NQ’s It’s really important to try and connect with other trainees or ask if your firm has (or can) put a buddy system in place 16 S H ROP SH IR E L AW YER

where a NQ Solicitor is assigned to the trainee to help answer any questions regarding their experience. Sharing experiences can help guide each other on this journey and navigate through your period of recognised training.

5. Never be afraid to ask for help Your training contract is the chance to be exposed to different areas of law and figure out what area you wish to qualify in. There is no such thing as a stupid question so ensure you ask whatever you can to your peers in order to help you learn. Asking for regular meetings with your supervisor in each department will give you an opportunity for you to reach your goals and achieve any objectives set by the department.

6. Take every opportunity Once I had undertaken my PSC I made sure I joined my local Law Society. This is an opportunity to attend some exciting and informative events and meet other lawyers and get your name out there. If you get invited to any networking opportunities with your firm ensure you attend. Of course this can be slightly nerve wracking but the more events you attend the more at ease you will become and your network will grow and so will your confidence.

7. Approaching qualification Eight weeks prior to qualification you will be required to complete a screening process. Getting this completed as soon as you are able to ensures that there will be no delays in getting you signed off by your Training Principal. Once this is done no more than four weeks before the end of your period of recognised training your Training Principle will be able to sign off your training contract. Ensure you speak with your training principal regarding this key day so you can plan a meeting to get your diary reviewed and get signed off.

8. Celebrate!

Once the important day arrives, celebrate! It’s a massive achievement and all your hard work over the years has paid off. You’ve been admitted to the roll and you’re ready to begin your career as a Solicitor. Now the hard work begins. ■ Abi qualified on 2nd April and will be joining Clarkes solicitors in the Commercial Property department in May

NEWS

FBCMB Managing director, Neil Lloyd with new Associates Kate Rowley, Anna Russell and Sam Roberts.

Top promotions announced at Shropshire law firm

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leading Shropshire law firm has promoted five of its top solicitors this March.

Colleagues from the Shrewsbury and Telford offices of award-winning legal practice FBC Manby Bowdler are all celebrating their promotion to the highly coveted position of Associate.

Adam Davies has been promoted to Associate in the Commercial Property team. Based in the Shrewsbury office, Adam started with FBC Manby Bowdler in 2016 and specialises in sales, purchases and leases of commercial properties in the region.

Also based in Shrewsbury, Anna Russell in the Agricultural and Rural Services team will now be the firm’s Associate.

Anna is a land and rural property law specialist and a member of the Agricultural Law Association, having qualified as a Fellow in 2020.

In addition, Associate promotions have been awarded to Olivia Jones, who initially joined the firm as a Paralegal in 2014 and now works in the Property Litigation team, and Sam Roberts who is part of the Wills, Probate & Lifetime Planning team.

Kate Rowley, who is based in FBC Manby Bowdler’s Telford office has also been promoted to Associate. Kate works within the Family Law team in Telford and is experienced in all aspects including divorce and financial issues, custody and access arrangements and cohabitation matters. She is a member of the Family Law organisation, Resolution.

Managing Director at FBC Manby Bowdler, Neil Lloyd said: “As a firm we strive for stellar service, it’s at the heart of what we do, but we can’t do that without the hard work of each and every one of the team here at FBC Manby Bowdler.

That’s why it’s so important to recognise and reward the achievements of individuals within the firm who go above and beyond to service our clients. These five talented and driven colleagues from Shropshire have truly earned their promotions to Associate and we will continue to support them on their journey with us.”

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NEWS

Partner promotions at specialist rural law firm Agri Advisor

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gri Advisor has announced two internal promotions with experienced Solicitors Arwyn Reed and Llio Phillips being promoted to Partners at the firm.

Established over a decade ago, Agri Advisor has enjoyed continued growth and expansion over the years and currently has five offices serving clients throughout Wales and the border counties with plans for further expansion this year. It was also awarded the prestigious Cynnig Cymraeg badge from the Welsh Language Commissioner last year for its commitment to providing Welsh language services to its clients.

Managing Partner and founder Dr Nerys Llewelyn Jones said “I am delighted to welcome both Arwyn and Llio to the Management Board. They have proven themselves to be invaluable assets to our firm since they both joined us in 2020 and are highly experienced in their respective departments. Our firm places a great emphasis on

Lanyon Bowdler news

W

e congratulate two of our colleagues who have been appointed partners and welcome a new partner.

Paul Ellis joined Lanyon Bowdler in 2017 having had previous experience as a Group Financial Controller for Severnside Housing and prior to that spent ten years working in accountancy practice.

Lucy Speed specialises in Court of Protection work and mental capacity issues, in particular dealing with clients who have suffered brain injuries. Lucy also deals with our work experience programme. Full details about the process and how to apply can be found here: www.lblaw.co.uk/careers.

New partner Matthew Bowering has joined the Commercial and Agricultural Property Department based in the Shrewsbury office. Matthew is a well-respected commercial property lawyer who has extensive experience in providing practical and professional advice on all non-contentious commercial and agricultural property- related issues.

Training Contracts Lanyon Bowdler take on four to six trainees each year, so with training contracts usually being for two years we generally have at least eight trainees with us at any one time, and usually around ten. Trainees usually spend six months in each "seat", so they gain experience in four areas of work.

Read our blog: Training Contract Selection and listen to our podcast about Training to be a Solicitor at Lanyon Bowdler here these will give you an idea as to our recruitment process 18 S H ROP SH IR E L AW YER

Arwyn Reed

Llio Phillips

developing and promoting talent from within and we are very proud of Arwyn and Llio’s successes to date.”

Both Arwyn and Llio have specialist agricultural knowledge and experience covering a range of legal areas. Arwyn was raised on a farm in the Gwaun Valley in Pembrokeshire.

Based in the firm’s Cardiff office, Arwyn heads up the firm’s Residential Property team and also deals with Wills and Probate and Family work. Head of Dispute Resolution, Llio, has decades of experience in Civil Litigation, Family Law and Dispute Resolution to include land and property disputes, contract and debt disputes. She is predominantly based from the firm’s Newcastle Emlyn office and lives on the family farm overlooking the Tivy Estuary.

Agri Advisor was recently announced as a finalist for the Law Firm of the Year award at the 2022 Wales Legal Awards which celebrates excellence in teams practicing in and providing services to the legal profession in Wales. The awards ceremony takes place in Cardiff on Friday 20 May.

and what you may expect during any interview to which you are invited as well as, if you are successful, information prior to commencing your training contract with us.

The 2023 applications are now closed. We are currently accepting applications for 2024. Please ensure your application is submitted by the end of December 2022. If you would like to apply, please send your CV and covering letter to brian.evans@lblaw.co.uk. Full details can be found here www.lblaw.co.uk/careers/training-contracts.

Podcasts The Legal Lounge has been a very busy place, after a successful season one, we have recently launched season two. If you have not visited yet you can do so here: The Legal Lounge (lblaw.co.uk) There are lots of interesting topics covered so far including episodes about work experience and how to apply to be a trainee with Lanyon Bowdler.

Charities we support The firm has a charity committee which meets several times each year. Lanyon Bowdler supports two local charities, nominated and chosen by those who work at the firm. The chosen charities for the twelve months running from 1 October 2021 are ELY memorial fund, which offers financial help for funeral costs when young ones are tragically killed in road traffic accidents in Herefordshire and Crest, which is a charity based in North Wales. Initially the project was established with one of the very first lottery grants and the aim of the project was to establish a community co-operative, to help disabled and unemployed people increase their skills and gain employment – either within the co-operative or to move on to sustainable employment within the community.

NEWS

PCB Solicitors taking on the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge for charity (L-R) Neil Lloyd, MD of FBC Manby Bowdler, who is running the Boston Marathon for the Midlands Air Ambulance Charity, and MAA critical care paramedic Kerry Penn-Ashman.

Law firm boss steps out stateside for Midlands Air Ambulance Charity

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eil Lloyd, who leads solicitors’ firm FBC Manby Bowdler, will head to Boston in the USA to compete in the city’s marathon on April 18 in aid of the Midlands Air Ambulance Charity.

The Boston marathon is the world’s oldest annual race of its kind and started in 1897. Neil will be pounding the pavements around the greater Boston area in eastern Massachusetts, hoping to shave two minutes off last year’s London marathon time of three hours and 12 minutes.

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ocal law firm PCB Solicitors will be taking on the Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge on Saturday 21st May 2022 to raise awareness and funds for Mind and Hope House & Ty Gobaith children’s hospices.

Partner Ryan Bickham said “Our staff chose the national charity Mind and local charity Hope House as our chosen charities for 2022, we wanted to take on a big challenge to help raise important funds for them and when the Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge was suggested we thought it would be ideal.”

The Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge includes the peaks of Pen-y-Ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside. The team will walk a circular 24 mile route taking in all three peaks in one day and the target is to complete the challenge within 12 hours.

Partner Ryan Bickham said “The team have started their training and there are plenty training routes to practice locally in Shropshire and Wales. We also felt like a walking challenge was appropriate to raise awareness for Mind as there is a lot of evidence that walking helps mental wellbeing.”

Neil said he chose the Midlands Air Ambulance Charity because, as a motorcyclist, he had a keen appreciation of the work it does across the region.

Hope House ensure that children with life-threatening conditions enjoy the best quality of life, together with their families. They provide specialist care and bereavement support, when and where people need it, and work to ensure that no one faces the death of a child alone.

“The charity provides an exceptional service, delivering specialist urgent patient care when and where it is needed.

But it costs in excess of £10m a year for us to have this peace of mind. It’s the kind of emergency help you hope you’ll never need, especially as a biker.

Mind is known as the mental health charity, working across England & Wales. They believe no one should face a mental health problem alone. They’re available to listen, give support & advice, & fight your corner.

“The Midlands Air Ambulance Charity also covers the same geographical area that FBC Manby Bowdler does so we know it would be there for our team or their families should they need it.”

He added: “I’m really looking forward to the challenge of the race and it will spur me on, knowing I’m raising money for such a great cause.”

Pam Hodgetts, corporate partnerships manager at the charity, said: “Midlands Air Ambulance Charity respond to an average of 12 missions a day all of which are funded by donations and charitable giving. Our corporate supporters play a massive part in achieving the £10million each year to keep our service operational, which is why we are extremely grateful and proud that Neil has chosen MAAC to be the recipients of his challenge.”

Donations to the Midlands Air Ambulance Charity can be made via www.justgiving.com/fundraising/neillloydmaa.

You can support Mind and Hope House by making a donation to their Just Giving pages: Hope House: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/pcb-solicitorsllphopehouse Mind: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/PCB-SolicitorsLLPMind

Whernside & Ribblehead Viaduct SHROP SHIR EL AWYER 19

ARTICLE

LEGAL TWITTER

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witter is addictive. Like a tube of Pringles or a boyfriend with a neck tattoo, you know you shouldn’t keep going back but you just can’t help yourself.

Even people who like Twitter call it a ‘Hellsite’ and sure enough Beelzebub himself would flinch at some of the unpleasantness to be found there. But there are seams of gold glinting in those infernal caverns, and Legal Twitter is one of the shiniest.

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The superstars like the Secret Barrister and Joanna HardySusskind (whom some believe to be the same person) are prolific and forensic dissecters of the legal issues of the day. So too is David Allen-Green. Others are more niche and sometimes more divisive, like Jolyon Maugham who leads the Good Law Project into regular battles with the government. Others still are just ordinary practitioners offering pithy aperçus about day-to-day lawyering.

There is rage here, but there is humour too. ■

ARTICLE

SHROP SHIR EL AWYER 21

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HELP YOUR CLIENT TO PROTECT THEIR INTERESTS, NOW AND IN THE FUTURE Informing homebuyers of the hazards arising from climate change that could affect their future property.

dyedurhamuk.com/about-us XX SH ROP SH IR E L AW YER

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

Expert insight and data that puts your client first Tim Champney

By Tim Champney, Head of Commercial, Insight & Data at Dye & Durham

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cquiring best-in-class data is critical to the conveyancing process. Quality of data is the foundation of any search and is a fundamental part of your due diligence processes, providing accurate information that helps the client understand any potential issues with their home purchase. However, the data itself is only part of the story. The presentation and interpretation of that data is just as critical. At Dye & Durham, our experts help to translate raw data into discernible insight, ensuring clarity and certainty, thereby allowing conveyancers to concentrate on putting the needs of their client first.

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Additionally, the nature of planning application data can make it challenging to identify the full extent of land over which the development will impact. Using our innovative FCICapture technology, we identify those applications, which although on face-value appear to be far from the property, are in fact likely to encroach much closer. The tools we’ve built really help to give more confidence to a homebuyer that we’ve captured all the relevant information to them, but still at an incredibly low cost.

To further help conveyancers, we have brought together the expertise and experience of three well-known brands, Future Climate Info (FCI), Terrafirma and Lawyer Checker, into one Insight & Data Team to provide a one-stop shop for due diligence on a transaction. This enables law firms to protect their clients against risk, and their clients to make informed buying decisions with the most up to date information.

Streamlined Reporting We are committed to making life easier for the conveyancer, and that begins with the report itself. We design our products to streamline the process; keeping them concise, easy to read and easy to report on. We want solicitors to be focused on where they add the most value for the homebuyer, not on trying to understand or interpret unnecessarily complex reports.

What differentiates us, and our products, is that we provide data and insight with upmost transparency. We always present ‘full’ datasets. Nothing is held back or made only accessible for an additional fee.

Climate Risk The frequency and severity of climatic and flood events has increased in recent years, and this will inevitably impact on property enjoyment and value. These events are often linked. For example, increased rainfall can lead to flooding, but it can also interact with the local geology to exacerbate potential ground stability risks such as subsidence or landslip. Coastal erosion might encroach upon the boundary of a cliff-side property, but that same process is also creating contamination risks, through the erosion and exposure of waste in historical coastal landfills.

As these risks change and evolve, so too must the way in which we consider them in the context of buying property.

We have harnessed our expertise and technology to understand data and provide more robust risk assessments and therefore, better insight. The FCI environmental search range has led from the front since 2018 by uniquely supplying analysis of local Air Quality as standard in its core products for example.

We have also just launched our brand-new Climate Report.

This report enables conveyancers to inform homebuyers of the hazards arising from climate change that could affect their property now and in the future, by assessing the impact of climate change on hazards including soil subsidence, coastal erosion, extreme winds, and flood risk.

Featuring a simple hazard score, the report allows a swift comparison between the different hazards and time periods with intuitive dashboards throughout. It enables homebuyers to identify when the property will be at a high exposure, to which hazard.

As an added-value, easy-to-understand report, which can be passed to the homebuyer, any queries can be directed to our expert customer support team at Dye & Durham Insight & Data, without the need for interpretation by the conveyancer.

It enables conveyancers to differentiate their offering, by giving clients something additional and of added value and interest to the homebuyer, alongside their traditional due diligence service. ■

By putting ourselves in the mindset of the homebuyer, we try to ensure that what we say also makes sense to them and avoids jargon. We have found that this significantly reduces the number of queries our clients receive helping them to recoup time in their day.

SHROP SHIR EL AWYER 23

AWARDS

SLS LEGAL AWARDS 2022 Sponsored by

T

he SLS Legal Awards have been introduced to recognise the exceptional legal talent within the Shropshire Law Society membership and celebrate the outstanding commitment to the profession across the county. In 2022 we want to come together to recognise the achievement of peers and colleagues, and to enjoy a fantastic evening of celebration.

We are inviting nominations in the following 10 categories, and would encourage any member to nominate themselves or a colleague before the closing date of 14th August 2022.

We would love to see entries from across the membership, from sole practitioners to large firms, and members are entitled to nominate for more than one category if they feel they meet the criteria for each. The only thing to remember is that nominees must be from Firm who are members of the Society to be eligible. Please don’t hesitate to contact the SLS office for clarification or to sign up if you are not currently a member.

1. Law Firm of the Year

2. Lawyer of the Year

The firm must be able to show significant progress and development as a business within the last 12 months.

Evidence of this can include details of growth, strategy, financial performance, employee development, training and diversity. The firm must also be able to demonstrate that it has a rounded approach to the delivery of legal services, and that it is working in the best interest of not only its clients but the profession overall.

The nominee must be a Lawyer who goes “above and beyond” in both his/ her colleagues’ eyes as well as those of the clients. This might be demonstrable in a specific case or work done in relation to a particular area of Law. The nominee may also have proposed and put in place a solution that proved beneficial to the firm overall or to his/ her client, or both. The Judges are looking for someone who evidence of a commitment to excellence, and who has made a consistent and significant contribution both within their firm and within the Shropshire area.

3. Paralegal of the Year

4. In House Lawyer of the Year

This award recognises the key role paralegals play in our justice system. The nominee will be an exceptional individual who consistently makes contributions to the legal profession whether in client care, business development, training or otherwise and who acts as an inspiration to other paralegals through their knowledge of the law, perseverance in cases, professional and personal development and superior skill set.

The judges will accept nominations who has shown highest excellence beyond the expectations of their role and demonstrated added value to their organisation.

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AWARDS

5. Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year

6. Rising Star of the Year

The judges will accept nominations based on one outstanding matter worked on during the last year or on the overall performance of the individual during that year. The nominee must be able to demonstrate that he/ she has delivered exceptional outcomes or improved access to justice for vulnerable parts of the community or responded with efficiency and agility to deliver services in urgent or unforeseen circumstances. Please explain the single greatest achievement of the past 12 months in one or more of the following: response to a genuine need or exceptional client outcome/s.

The nominee needs to show a sizeable level of involvement within the profession and/or the area in which they practice and provide evidence of any significant obstacle/s they have overcome. Evidence in relation to how and why the nominee has “risen” over the past 12 months is advised.

7. Trainee/Junior Lawyer of the Year

8. Support Team Member of the Year

The Judges are looking for a Trainee who has gone above and beyond the day-to day expectations of a trainee bringing insight, flair, imagination and hard work to everything they do. This could be in terms of their legal work, their involvement pro bono schemes or particular projects in their organization.

We are welcoming nominations from colleagues or clients for secretaries, cashiers and other support team members who support Shropshire Law Society members.

Nominees must demonstrate a special contribution to their organization or to specific clients, showing dedication and commitment that goes ‘the extra mile’.

9. Barrister of the Year

10. Lifetime achievement

This category acknowledges truly exceptional individual contributions to the profession during the past 12 months.

Judges will be looking for evidence of exceptional performance in any area that makes the chosen Barrister stand out from their peers.

We are welcoming nominations for a lawyer or legal professional who you think has made an outstanding impact and lasting contribution to the legal services market in the region during their lifetime. This award is intended to recognize senior lawyers who have been practicing law for a minimum of 12 years PQE. It takes into account individuals’ achievements and wider contributions to the practice of law within Shropshire.

Could it be you?

Do you have what it takes to be our Lawyer or Law Firm of the Year? Will your firm, one of your colleagues or even you be one of our winners?

For further details and an application form please email:

info@shropshirelawsociety.com

SHROP SHIR EL AWYER 25

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Hi,I'm Kate

A BIG YEAR WITH

SHROPSHIRE LAW SOCIETY This is an exciting year for the Shropshire Law Society with the launches of this magazine and the Shropshire Law Society Legal Awards, which will see the winners revealed at a gala dinner at Hencote, in September.

Kate Bould Managing Director Index PI West Midlands Credentials supported by Minerva winning ‘Legal Supplier of the Year’ in the ‘Law Firm Services’ category, at the British Conveyancing Awards 2022.

As MD of Index Property Information West Midlands, I’m delighted and honoured to be involved with the Society, supporting these two landmark events, as an advertiser and contributor to this magazine, and as main sponsor and a member of the judging-panel for the Legal Awards.

For those of you who may not have heard of Index…we’re the UK’s number one provider of service, technology and compliance solutions for conveyancers and property professionals.

Let me back up that statement with some evidence…

Technology & Compliance Our market-leading portfolio of technology products help our clients reduce risk, maximise compliance, and increase the speed and efficiency of every process and transaction.

A great example of this is Minerva, the latest addition to our technology portfolio. Minerva is the quickest and best, remote and ‘safe harbour’ compliant, end-to-end, client onboarding solution on the market.

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TO FIND OUT MORE: www.IndexOnboarding.co.uk

Local Service, Knowledge & Expertise To complement our technology, our set-up of local offices with client-facing property information specialists in every region, gives us another distinct advantage over other providers.

Here in Shropshire, and all across the West Midlands, we build strong, trusting, long-term relationships with clients and contacts alike, and we add value to these relationships wherever we can…

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Free Webinars: Coming Up

From 1st May, all Law Society CQS-accredited practices must meet the Core Practice Management Standards (CPMS). Onsite CQS Assessments will begin in May. As a partner of The Law Society for CQS, we’re hosting 2 FREE WEBINARS to help conveyancers reduce risk & maximise compliance for CQS accreditation.

As with all our webinars, if you can’t make one of the dates, still register & we’ll send you a recording after each event.

Webinar 1: SDLT Calculations: Remove Risk/Maximise Compliance

Social Media: LinkedIn Since March 2020, we’ve run our own regional LinkedIn page, posting regular updates for our clients and contacts about: • New housing schemes in the region with conveyancing opportunities • National & regional property sector news • New products as we launch them • Our free webinars for training, advice & tips

CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW US ON LINKEDIN

Wednesday 27th April, 1pm to 1.20pm SDLT is one of the most complex taxes on the UK statute book with 49 different tax reliefs. Join us for this 20-minute Q&A with our SDLT tax expert.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Webinar 2: CQS CPMS 2022: Demonstrating Compliance Thursday 28th April, 2pm to 5pm How to demonstrate compliance with the 40 individual requirements of the 2022 CPMS. Join us for this 3-hour session with Tracy Thompson, CQS Lead Assessor.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Follow us

linkedin.com/company/index-wm twitter.com/indexpi_wm

Until Next Time…

If you’d like to contact me about any of the topics I’ve talked about, or anything else, please free to contact me directly: e. katebould@indexpi.co.uk t. 0121 546 0377 I look forward to catching up with you soon.

Best regards

d l u o B e at K

Best regards

T 0121 546 0377 E westmidlands@indexpi.co.uk www.indexpi.co.uk

d l u o B e Kat SHROP SHIR EL AWYER 27

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

Adam Francis Architectural Illustrator Adam Francis

I

describe myself as an ‘architectural illustrator’, preferring to draw the man-made beauty of architecture over that of the natural countryside, from my studio in Macclesfield, Cheshire.

I primarily illustrate scenes closer to home but after many requests for a Shrewsbury illustration, I took the time to visit Shrewsbury, coupled with some additional online research about listed/iconic buildings and created my ‘Architecture of Shrewsbury’ illustrations.

I could never fit every iconic building into an illustration, and I was obviously spoilt for choice with Shrewsbury, but I aim to give a fair representation of the town’s architectural heritage.

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You can purchase prints of my two Shrewsbury illustrations on my website.

Along with my ever growing catalogue of local town illustrations, I also undertake commissions for personal locations, such as homes or businesses. If you would like some information on commissioning your own illustration of your home or business, then please get in touch or have a look on my website. www.adam-francis.com/shrewsbury adamfrancisart@gmail.com

REPORT

It’s not about winning* O

n the remote fringes of civilised society there exists an obscure cult whose members practise the long-obsolete skill of Knowing Stuff Without Googling It. Like getting giblets out of a chicken or changing a spark plug, this is a skill which no person living in 2022 actually needs, and yet they persist.

Thus it was that on 16th February this year, 18 teams of up to four friendless nerds coalesced like fluff in a washing machine filter to compete for the frankly not-very-coveted title of Shropshire LawSoc Quiz Champions Spring 2022.

The atmosphere was febrile. Quizmaster Scoob made a joke about Stevie Wonder which had half the room studying their cuticles and the other half snickering like Beavis and Butthead. Lawyers unused to multitasking (or indeed tasking) began to lose their shit as they tried to fill in the picture round while answering questions on Culture And Literature. Decades-long friendships splintered like sparrow bones in the jaws of a feral cat over the awarding or withholding of a half point for the forename of an Olympic figure skater.

Here is a selection of the questions which our valiant TriviaNauts had to grapple with: What was the Roman name for the city of Chester?

How many human players are on each side in a game of polo?

Grenadine comes from which fruit?

Who won the Costa 2021 book of the year?

In Greek Mythology, who was the first woman on Earth?

I know what you’re thinking: What kind of mutant would store stuff like that in their actual brain? But store it they did, to the extent that at half time 6 teams were neck and neck.

This brought into sharp relief the $64,000 question of all quiz tournaments: When shall we play our Joker?

For the uninitiated, a Joker doubles your score on a given round. Play it on the 90s sitcoms round where you only scored three and you have one foot in the grave; play it on

the 80s gameshows round where you scored fifteen, and you are going for gold. It’s a gamble. The winners need to deploy a combination of utterly inconsequential factretention; strategic cunning; and an ability to write legibly under pressure.

At the end of the Spring Quiz 2022 the team which emerged victorious from the seething crucible of trivia was the Lanyon Bowdler threesome pictured here at their moment of triumph. They left not only with a swagger in their step, a fun-sized trophy and the beginnings of a tension headache just behind their eyes, but also with a bottle of champagne each.

But on a night such as this there isn’t just one winner. The raffle saw people with no intellectual abilities at all going home with fabulous prizes donated by Tanners, Shrewsbury Town Football Club, Rad beer, PCB solicitors, Flavells wealth management, Caffe Mondi, Cote Brasserie, Lanyon Bowdler and others. As a result, £250 was raised for Shropshire Domestic Abuse Service.

The event has been hailed as the best quiz to be held on a Wednesday in February, and everyone who attended will, I’m sure, join me in thanking the President for her brilliant organisation and Torquemadalike way with a question. Let’s do it again soon. *actually, it’s all about winning. ■

SHROP SHIR EL AWYER 29

INTEREST

Treasure Hunt clues I f you were not able to join us for our treasure hunt on 13th April, grab yourself a free town map from www.originalshrewsbury.co.uk (grid references in brackets) and enjoy a stroll around Shrewsbury.

1. What prohibition is written in stone on the Welsh bridge?

(D3) 2. Which cycle route runs through the quarry? (A4) 3. This hero only had 12 Labours. You’ve got 20 (A6) 4. In what year was Mrs Foxall burned at the stake in the Dingle? (A6) 5. Who sculpted St Michael beneath the canopy? (C5) 6. Mixed up CHANTS SAID at this holy place. Who’s the vicar? (C5) 7. You can get a drink from this crazy insectivorous mammal. (D5) 8. In what year did a statue leave the Welsh bridge to go to the OMH? (E5) 9. In what year was the market hall originally completed?

(E5) 10. A purveyor of feline nightwear (E5)

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11. You can pick up a Dirty Boy on the High Street. For how much? (F5) 12. What initials are underfoot in the Golden Cross passage?

(F6) 13. Which wax sculptor stayed at the Lion Hotel? (G6) 14. If you took your Dirty Boy back to the Lion, how much would it cost to park for 6 hours? (G6) 15. Peer through a window to see a judge in his Chambers (G5) 16. David III Prince of Wales was executed opposite a high cross. What year? (F4) 17. There was a young farmer from Hope / who came into town to score dope / He got a bit woozy / and picked up a floozy / then went up this lane for a _ _ _ _ _ (F5) 18. The sign on The Original Smoke Free Pub shows three species. What are they? _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _ _ (F5) 19. The former No.6 fell down. In what year did it collapse?

(F6) 20. Can you find an honest lawyer in the Coach and Horses?

(E6)

INTEREST

“Cry havoc! And let slip the Dogs of Law”

D

o you have a Learned best friend? A legal beagle?

A Receiver’s retriever? A Doberman as sober as a judge? A Shi Tzu who likes to sue? Maybe your Lhasa Apso’s got an ASBO or your Peke has been up before the Beak?

We want to see them all! Send your pooch pictures to info@ shropshirelawsociety.com for inclusion in the Summer edition of Shropshire Lawyer. Pointers means prizes! ■

Cryptic Crossword No.1 by Chippy ACROSS 1. Tasted a corrupted spreadsheet (7) 5. Codicil in the saddle (5) 8. I cry, Allan, wretchedly: a kind of relief (9) 9. Taxi for Mr Calloway (3) 10. No mass sitcom histrionics for this philosophical type (5) 12. Doner kebab has Crusaders’ nemesis (7) 13. Thor rescuing a disaster for trials (5,8) 15. Prize after two points? To the beach! (7) 17. Emilia constantly entertains hippy (5) 19. Garland reclined on the radio (3) 20. Counsel sibling to lose her head after pub (double to finish) (9) 22. Island sounds perfect for Ross (5) 23. Lose tip of finger by river for surveillance equipment (7) DOWN 1. Wee drinks make ambitions lose energy (5) 2. See 21 3. As lawyers do in red light zones? (7) 4. Awful green ad trends for M to F or F to M (13) 5. Jenkins and Jolson belonging to the ruling class (5) 6. CID indeed confused ratio (9) 7. Bisexual, in tears, ties up again (7) 11. Fertile? UGOV chaotically embraces dead language (9) 13. A&E – claws out sets precedent (7) 14 Fence protesting loudly (7) 16 Scope contained within Team Bitcoin (5) 18 Before company add butter (5) 21 Semaphore for fresher breath (3,3) Solutions in the next issue.

SHROP SHIR EL AWYER 31

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

Poppy’s second chance at love

P

oppy’s owner first contacted her local rehoming centre and said she needed to hand Poppy, a four year old Chihuahua cross, over to us as she had sadly recently been given a diagnosis that she had a terminal illness. She was advised to apply for a free Canine Care Card and nominate a Dog Guardian; someone she trusts to sign over the care of Poppy to Dogs Trust should she need it. She’d then be able to spend the most time possible with Poppy and feel reassured that she’d be given the best possible care at Dogs Trust when they could no longer be together.

When Poppy’s Dog Guardian contacted us to advise that her owner was now receiving palliative care and that they needed to activate her Canine Care Card, Poppy was collected by Dogs Trust the very next day. After a vet and behavioural assessment we decided the best place for Poppy would be a loving foster home.

We were able to advise the foster carers of all the information we’d been given by Poppy’s owner regarding her life, diet and routine to enable us to make this transitional period as stress-free as possible for Poppy.

Within almost no time, we were able to find very affectionate Poppy a lovely new home for her second chance at love.

Poppy’s story is one of many we come across at Dogs Trust.

Many owners are growing increasingly worried about gradually losing their independence or their health deteriorating. Dogs Trust want to offer owners peace of mind that we will be there at this difficult time to care for and rehome their four legged friends should the worst happen.

Therefore we’re pleased to announce that we have extended our Canine Care Card service. Dogs Trust will care for your dog should you move into a care home, become seriously ill or pass away.

For more information on our Canine Care Card service and how to register your dog please type in this link www.dogstrust.org.uk/ccc where you will find our online application form and more information on our free service.

If you have any queries regarding the Canine Care Card please email CCC@dogstrust.org.uk or call 020 7837 0006 and we will be happy to help. ■

Who’ll keep her happy when your client’s gone?

We will – as long as your client has a Canine Care Card.

It’s a FREE service from Dogs Trust that guarantees their dog a second chance a life.

At Dogs Trust, we never put down a healthy dog.

We’ll care for them at one of our 21 rehoming centres, located around the UK. One in every four of your clients has a canine companion. Naturally they’ll want to make provision for their faithful friend. And now you can help them at absolutely no cost. So contact us today for your FREE pack of Canine Care Card leaflets – and make a dog-lover happy.

E-mail ccc@dogstrust.org.uk Or call 020 7837 0006

Or write to: FREEPOST DOGSTRUSTL (No stamp required) Please quote “334975” All information will be treated as strictly confidential. Service only available for residents of the UK, Ireland, Channel Islands & Isle of Man.

A dog is for life, not just for Christmas®

Registered charity numbers: 227523 & SC037843

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dogstrust.org.uk

© Dogs Trust 2021

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SHROP SHIR EL AWYER 33

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