Thu, 6. August 2009
There are lawyers... and then there are the rest of us
I still do. I put it down to them wanting to be seen orbiting at a different altitude to the rest of us. My only direct contact with lawyers was in family matters - conveyancing, probate and worker's compensation. Solicitors seemed to have their own quaint lawyerish ways of doing these routine things but nevertheless things get done in due course.
However, Joan's worker's compensation case was drawn out excessively by the insurance company's lawyers, whose work seemed to consist mainly of bargaining their way to the lowest possible payout, regardless of their responsibilities. Does it really need a whole team of solicitors and barristers just to barter?
I looked forward to doing jury duty a few years ago but the five day trial could easily have been compressed into two days if the lawyers had a mind to do it. They talk too much and I was not impressed by the court's 'nine to four' working days, two hour lunch breaks and half hour tea breaks.
The legal profession slid to rock bottom in my estimation as I watched the debacle of the liquidation of Austin Australia, my employer for twenty-six years as an electrical design engineer and IT network administrator. The company crashed in December 2003. As I write this, in August 2009, the legal wranglings are continuing. The lawyers have been paid multi-millions out of the proceedings, whilst the employees have waited nearly six years for a 'mere' million dollars worth of entitlements.
Most employees would place the main reason for liquidating the company on the refusal of Auburn Council to pay Austin $3M owed to it, following the construction of their new civic centre. Quite simply, Austin would not have crashed when it did if it had received that $3M on time - and conceivably may not have crashed at all.
The arbitration had been going for some considerable time before the crash and the Auburn Council lawyers dragged the proceedings out more than five years after the crash. From an employee viewpoint it seemed that lawyers were trying to win their case by bartering, obfuscating and dragging it out in the hope that Austin or it's liquidators might just give up. The result of this was to:
- bring down a reputable specialist construction company, established in Australia for forty-four years,
- destroy the jobs of 130 people,
- wreck the finances of many small businesses who traded with Austin,
- delay the payment of employees entitlements for six years (so far),
- feed a frenzy of lawyers for six years (so far),
- take over six years to settle a dispute - over a building that took less than two years to construct,
- cost the Auburn ratepayers something like $7M in legal costs - about half the cost of the large building complex itself.
A few months ago, an arbitrator ruled every item in Austin's favour.The Council had to pay up – but wanted to barter when it came to paying costs. After several more months, Austin's legal costs were finally agreed to by Councils lawyers - but only $3M out of an actual $3.8M. Of course, it was nearly six years too late to save the company that had been destroyed. Perhaps we employees should think about suing Auburn Council for loss of livelihood – but more legal proceedings would just feed another lawyer's frenzy and somehow I just know the lawyers would not allow us to win.
The laws governing the liquidation of companies seem to have been written with the interests of the legal profession at heart, not the victims - employees and subcontractors. Solicitors can take their time over their tasks. Defendants can miss court deadlines. Judges can continue to postpone proceedings and set revised dates many months into the future. Barristers can charge ridiculous fees. Arbitration becomes another goldmine for lawyers. The corrupt practice of bartering to reduce liability is regarded as acceptable practice. “I'll offer you just enough to prevent you taking me to court to make me pay the full amount that I really owe you”.
The building itself took around eighteen months to construct and cost something like $16 million in labour and materials. It was designed and built under strict time and cost restraints by hundreds of competent employees and subcontractors. Yet a pitifully small collection of lawyers spent six years arguing over small aspects of the construction and were paid over $7 million for it, whilst employees lost their jobs and waited years for their entitlements before the verdict went their way. There was no governing authority to impose deadlines or cost restraints on the lawyers. Nor was there any sense of proportion, as the time taken and the costs incurred exceeded beyond reason. Events just drifted on endlessly whilst costs accumulated at an indecent rate.
If we had been allowed to construct buildings under the same lack of restraints that lawyers work under, nothing would ever be built. The pyramids might be just poking up out of the ground by now but most of us would be living in caves. At least, that's my opinion, and as someone once said, the difference between a good lawyer and a bad lawyer is that a bad lawyer can let a case drag out for several years. A good lawyer can make it last even longer.
Oh well, at least we engineers didn't have to dress up in wacky wigs and goofy gowns to earn our living!