Stephenson Harwood has received an absolute kicking in court after submitting ridiculously long skeleton arguments.
The SH lawyers got into trouble while acting for property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz. They were in the court of appeal this week for a hearing before Lord Justice Jackson, who is famously known for his desire to keep a lid on court costs. Accordingly Jackson was far from impressed with SH's liberal approach to document production.
As Jackson explained, practice directions require that skeleton arguments should not be longer than 25 pages. However SH lawyers threw the rulebook out the window when they served a 47 page skeleton, plus a supplementary argument at 34 pages, plus an appendix of 15 pages.
A seething Jackson commented:
The only thing that could have been worse was if the lawyers turned up in Harry Potter robes. Stephenson Harwood did not return RollOnFriday’s request for comment as the firm was too busy brushing up on basic CPR rules.
Stephenson Harwood's full kicking can be read here.
Tip Off ROF
The SH lawyers got into trouble while acting for property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz. They were in the court of appeal this week for a hearing before Lord Justice Jackson, who is famously known for his desire to keep a lid on court costs. Accordingly Jackson was far from impressed with SH's liberal approach to document production.
As Jackson explained, practice directions require that skeleton arguments should not be longer than 25 pages. However SH lawyers threw the rulebook out the window when they served a 47 page skeleton, plus a supplementary argument at 34 pages, plus an appendix of 15 pages.
A seething Jackson commented:
The underlying message |
The only thing that could have been worse was if the lawyers turned up in Harry Potter robes. Stephenson Harwood did not return RollOnFriday’s request for comment as the firm was too busy brushing up on basic CPR rules.
Stephenson Harwood's full kicking can be read here.
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