#evictionbuddies
Jeff Lampert, former founder and chairman of Heritage Plc:
I became a Litigant in Person (LiP) after the barrister I was employing said to my solicitor: ‘I’m not going to put those 2 reports into court. If Jeff insists on putting them in, he either does it himself or finds another barrister.’
This occurred just two days before a Court of Appeal hearing and a week after the barrister had received the reports. These were reports that Grant Thornton (the admin receivers to Heritage Plc) had said didn’t exist.
The same reports later became subject of a House of Commons debate.
At that time, my barrister chose to believe Grant Thornton’s assertion that I had seen these reports, rather than my affirmation that I had not. In 1998, Grant Thornton were a firm of well- respected accountants – so it was a case of my then barrister believing a professional instead of me, which he was entitled to do. I don’t believe that would happen now.
Jane Farmer, the PG Widow
I was forcibly thrown into a world of expensive litigation at a time when I was subsisting on £30/month for food and could not afford heating. ‘Consult your legal advisor’ is a standard phrase that makes me livid; who has a legal advisor to hand when they can’t afford basic living costs?
I was led down the route of legal aid but was told at the last hurdle that my home was worth more than £100k so I didn’t qualify.
Ironically, it was my home I was fighting for. For a time, I put my trust in a small-town solicitor who turned out to be no match for the game-playing antics of an aggressive, salaried, bonus-led, corporate banking lawyer. In effect, I had just as much work to do but couldn’t talk to the claimants due to legal protocol – this was very unhelpful. I couldn’t intervene when my solicitor did the wrong thing but was bound by what she did. She was constrained by how much I could pay.
Then I witnessed an argument between the opposing legal teams over who had `first call` on my home to pay their fees. That’s when I became a litigant in person.