Tamara Lewis, notable for having written the excellent Employment Law: an adviser’s handbook, has written the Claimant’s Companion.
A lot of litigants present character references to the tribunal. These tend to be short statements or letters written by people who know the litigant saying, in effect: ‘Mr Smith is a good and honest man, who certainly would / wouldn’t have….’
A common variation is statements about the other side saying, more or less: ‘Ms Jones is a nasty and dishonest person, who certainly would / wouldn’t have….’
This makes a certain amount of sense. An important part of the tribunal’s role is to decide who to believe. So the character of the parties, good or bad, is important.
But these statements are rarely, if ever, of any use.
If both parties are going to give the tribunal a skeleton argument or written submissions, the usual thing is to exchange them simultaneously. The idea is that neither side gets to write their document having the unfair advantage of a preview of their opponent’s.
First Law: Documents may be assembled in any order, provided it is not chronological, numerical or alphabetical.
Second Law: Documents shall in no circumstances be paginated continuously.
Third Law: No two copies of any bundle shall have the same pagination.
Fourth Law: Every document shall carry at least three numbers in different places.
It is important to know thyself.
But sometimes it is just as useful to know others.
Simon Myerson Q.C., who writes at Pupillage and how to get it, has been talking about self-criticism.
Although he’s speaking mostly in the context of interviews for pupillage (the final stage of a barrister’s training), his advice is good and much more widely applicable.
It is a truth generally acknowledged that Her Majesties Revenue and Customs are evil. But nobody is totally evil. And even the Revenue has its good points.
One of these is that they provide some useful online help for calculating certain statutory payments.
When you turn up to a tribunal hearing you should bring with you all the relevant papers.
This sounds obvious, but in practice it is easy to make mistakes.
Someone recently found this blog by the search ‘What to do when the evidence against you is overwhelming.’ The best answer to this is ‘give up.’ The reason that’s not as obvious as it sounds is that sometimes the evidence against you is overwhelming even though you are in the right.