Legal wit – and waste

I have (and I apologise) bored you with moans about my divorce a couple of times, but one story about the changing attitudes in legal circles amused me no end.

I was asking my lawyer why it seems almost impossible to get really emphatic, no-nonsense advice. I found the constant request, “Can we have your instructions” without being too firm on what they should be, rather wearing.

If someone comes to me for my advice then they get it, hot and strong. That’s what I’m paid for. What if I just said, “Well, you could do this, or you could do that and this might happen or that might – what do you want to do?”

But apparently lawyers nowadays are so frightened of doing the wrong thing and getting the pants sued off them that they have nearly all turned into frightened pussy cats.

The difference was pointed up to me by a friend who was in practice for many years, but has now chucked it in. He told me about a choice letter sent by one solicitor to another in the good old days.

It read, in total: “In reply to yours of the 22nd, kindly fuck off. P.S. Rude letter follows.”

Good stuff. The world has gone downhill.