Find a Direct Access Barrister in London

Posted by Chris on July 10th, 2015

You don’t need to go to a barrister via a lawyer any more – in London or elsewhere in the U.K. – you can go DIRECT.

The main advantage to you is COST. You might have to do some work for it but that is inevitable.

The following Introduction to Direct Access to a Barrister is taken from the Bar Council guidance to Lay Clients ( that’s YOU )

THE PUBLIC ACCESS SCHEME GUIDANCE FOR LAY CLIENT Introduction The purpose of this Guide is to explain how the public access scheme works and to show how lay clients can use it to instruct barristers. What is public access? Members of the public may now go directly to a barrister without having to involve an instructing solicitor or other intermediary. In the past it was necessary for clients to use a solicitor or other recognised third party through whom the barrister would be instructed. Although the barrister’s role remains essentially the same, members of the public may instruct a barrister directly through the public access scheme. What are the advantages of the public access scheme? The main advantage of the public access scheme is that it could potentially save you money whilst giving you access to the Bar, since you would be paying for a barrister only instead of a barrister and solicitor. However, although the barrister would be able to deal with most aspects of the case, you could have to assist in some limited areas, generally with filing documents with the court. This is explained in more detail below. Is my case suitable for public access? Public access is available in all types of work that barristers can do, except for work funded out of legal aid. It is most suitable for reasonably straightforward cases. It is likely to be inappropriate in cases involving children. If you are not sure whether your case would be suitable for public access, you should contact an appropriate barrister (see below) of his or her clerk and seek an initial view. If the barrister considers that your case would benefit from the involvement of a solicitor, he or she will tell you so. A barrister may choose whether or not to take a public access case. The factors which he or she will take into account are discussed below. How do I make use of the public access scheme? For more information contact: the Professional Practice Team on 020 7611 1444 2 To use the scheme, you would have to instruct a barrister yourself. Further details of how to do this are given in this guidance.

Direct Access Barrister London

 

SEARCH FOR A BARRISTER HERE

 

Another company fails to sell after using their accountant !!

Posted by Chris on March 13th, 2010

It was only a chance discussion really.

I was out the front of my house doing a bit of a clear up when one of the neighbours walked by and asked how it was going.

We had a discussion about the economy and I was telling him about some of the conversation that I had had recently with James Martin, a partner at Begbies Traynor that I know.

http://www.begbies-traynorgroup.com/begbies-traynor/

Surprisingly, Begbies ( who are known for their insolvency work ) are not quite as busy as you might have thought – because for lots of reasons companies are not going  bust in the numbers that you would think was happening. Loads of reasons for this and I will try and get James to come on here and outline his thoughts on the subject soon.

Anyway – back to the point – so one of my neighbours tells me that he had failed to sell a company where he was a shareholder.

Or, more to the point their accountant had failed to sell the company ( but had managed to walk away with a substantial amount of fees ! ).

The one bidder ( !! ) had unsurprisingly ( to me ) managed to find loads of reasons why they should not complete the deal.

A ” dummy ” competitor had been contrived but the ruse failed because the M.D. of the one company called the M.D. of the other company and  said something like ” are you really looking to buy this company ” to which the answer was ( of course ) – No !!

So, that was the end of that little plan !!

In fact I have been working with a number of companies recently who finally realised that the only way that they were going to get a result was by creating serious competition for their business. Not pretend competition but real competition.

Selling a company ( like raising finance for a company ) is not an accountancy exercise it is a sales and marketing exercise. The chances of an accountant understanding this are close to zero.

The main problem is one of the main reasons that I started this blog – most business people do not know where to go to to get advice and guidance on how to sell a business. Because of this they end up going to their lawyer, accountant or ” one of their mates ” .

We nearly made the same mistake ourselves when we sold Voyager. In fairness our F.D. had raised his sights above our day to day accountant and was talking to Deloitte & Touche ( who we had earlier used for an acquisition ) and Deloittes have a lot of experience in selling businesses. However the key decision that we made at that time was to have a ” beauty parade “. I still remember the day that we wondered around Birmingham while Deloittes, Ernst & Young and someone else ( I can’t remember who ) presented to us on why they should be our representatives in the sale of our business.

In the end we chose Ernst & Young ( after much discussion ) for loads of reasons – we liked them, they had the best process, they would market us globally, they understood our market and the opportunity etc etc

The way to get a great result is to pick the right adviser in the first place – it is highly unlikely to be your lawyer ( although we did use the same lawyer for the sale as we did for the acquisition ) or accountant !!

Very clever wealth manager needed to handle £56 Million

Posted by Chris on February 17th, 2010

When you get £56 Million from the lottery you need the services of a very clever wealth manager

With the recent news that 2 sets of people got around £56 Million each from the lottery and my visit yesterday to the City of London meeting wealth managers my thoughts turned to who you would choose as your wealth managers and where you would put your money ?

A quick Google of ” where would you put £56 million if you won the lottery ” revealed this from LotteryBuddy.com :

More than 240 winners of at least $1 million responded to surveys (42% of all such winners) by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLGC) in 2003.
89% put money in the bank.
75% shared money with family or friends.
62% bought a new car.
58% paid off debts.
56% took a vacation.
47% donated to charity.
37% paid off mortgage.
34% bought a house.
28% paid for education for self/family.
15% changed their overall lifestyle.
6% bought a boat.

What was the experience like for the winners?
95% sought professional financial advice.
77% reported they had been contacted by the news media. 93% of those contacted said they received fair and courteous treatment.
47% of winners said they were solicited for donations. Among those solicited, 71% said it was “not a problem”.
42% of winners either retired, gave up their job, changed jobs, went to school or opened their own business.

I also quite liked these responses to the Linkedin question ” Why are 75% of all multi-million dollar lottery winners broke within 5 years? ”

http://www.linkedin.com/answers/personal-finance/wealth-management/PFI_WMG/226556-400169

It was good to see that 95% of the people who won the Ontario Lottery sought the advice of professional financial advisors. No doubt one of the first things that the lottery does is to offer financial advice ( although having never won the lottery I don’t know exactly what they do ).

A Google for ” do lottery winners get financial advice? ” revealed this:

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Banking/P43409.asp

which said, amongst other things

Find people you can trust.

“The most important financial decision to make initially is who’s going to be accountant, financial adviser and lawyer,” says Hartigan. “And I don’t think they should be the same person.” If you don’t have all of these people in your Rolodex currently — and how many of us do? — “talk to other people who use these kinds of services. Referral is the best way,” Hartigan suggests. If none of your friends or family can recommend a particular professional, Hartigan recommends going to a major accounting firm, a major brokerage and a large law firm. “Ask what they’ll do for you.” Garrison agrees with Hartigan’s advice and adds, “References are mandatory.”

The hardest part of this is the first sentence:

Find people you can trust.

because this will be your greatest challenge.

As I have said I think that the lottery would probably put forward a list of ( hopefully ) proven and trustworthy accountants, lawyers and financial advisers.

But can you imagine this situation ??

One day you don’t really know any lawyers, accountants or financial advisers – or if you do then they deal with relatively minor financial and legal issues – and the next day you have to choose ” trusted ” people that can handle £56 Million !!

Actually ordinary accountants, lawyers and financial advisers are probably not the right people – even if they are from big firms. What you actually need is a Wealth Manager. Now, again, I imagine that with it’s experience of handing out £millions to lottery winners the lottery would have evolved to the position where it had a recommended list of Wealth Managers who really knew how to manage £56 Million rather than accountants, lawyers and financial advisers.

I’ll be developing this theme further over the next few weeks.


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