Sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war right?

How many of my fellow solicitors have felt the urge to unmute themselves during a remote hearing?

Well.. yesterday was one of those days for me!

Clearly it doesn’t matter how well prepared you are for a hearing; how perfectly paginated your bundle is or whether it’s the third time the other side have failed to comply with a Court order. If the Judge doesn't want to deal with your application and give your client the order they so deserve, there is literally nothing you can do about it.

Having successfully applied for an order for security for costs weeks ago, the claimant failed to give security by the deadline given by the Court and further failed to apply for an extension to pay those funds into Court. In fact, the claimant had gone AWOL and suddenly lost an interest in the claim he had chosen to bring against our client – very strange given he paid a ￡10,000 court fee for the privilege, but I suppose having to pay ￡60,000 into Court in order to continue pursuing your ￡200,000 claim might do that to a person. The Judge didn’t consider that the claim should be struck out (outrageous, I know) and decided an hour into the application that he wasn’t prepared to deal with it for reasons that kept me awake late last night. Instead, he adjourned the hearing to a different Judge after a significant amount of persuasion by our side. Well.. I never thought I’d say it, but I don’t think I’ve ever wanted an application dismissed so badly – at least we would have had the option to appeal.

Moral of the story: Life isn’t always fair, Judges don’t always get it right, unmuting yourself during a virtual hearing where counsel is instructed is definitely a bad idea (don't worry, I wasn't that brave) and today is Friday so if we decide to drink three gallons of wine, that’s ok. Happy Friday all!