The usual way the English* courts punish delinquent lawyers is via costs. The English and Welsh legal system has the following features:
- As a rule, the loser of a civil case pays the winning side's legal costs. - Legal costs are assessed by a judge. - Other than in personal injury cases, costs don't come out of damages, they are separately awarded. - Damages themselves are assessed by a judge and are in almost all circumstances compensatory rather than punitive (and so far lower, in many cases, than in the USA).
This means that lawyers can be punished by judges by a refusal to award costs even in the lawyer is representing the winning side. That means that the client will have to pay the lawyer knowing that the money won't be refunded by the other side, which is not a situation a lawyer wants to put a client in. For really egregious cases, courts can make 'wasted costs orders' directly against a lawyer.
* Scotland has a separate and quite distinct (in history and nature) legal system from that of England and Wales. Northern Ireland also has a separate system, although it is rather closer to that of England and Wales than the Scottish one is. Referring to the 'British Legal System' within the hearing of a Scot is likely to get you a much longer and more forceful version of this explanation!
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-12-02 08:49 am (UTC)- As a rule, the loser of a civil case pays the winning side's legal costs.
- Legal costs are assessed by a judge.
- Other than in personal injury cases, costs don't come out of damages, they are separately awarded.
- Damages themselves are assessed by a judge and are in almost all circumstances compensatory rather than punitive (and so far lower, in many cases, than in the USA).
This means that lawyers can be punished by judges by a refusal to award costs even in the lawyer is representing the winning side. That means that the client will have to pay the lawyer knowing that the money won't be refunded by the other side, which is not a situation a lawyer wants to put a client in. For really egregious cases, courts can make 'wasted costs orders' directly against a lawyer.
* Scotland has a separate and quite distinct (in history and nature) legal system from that of England and Wales. Northern Ireland also has a separate system, although it is rather closer to that of England and Wales than the Scottish one is. Referring to the 'British Legal System' within the hearing of a Scot is likely to get you a much longer and more forceful version of this explanation!