Chris Makin’s Recent Blog Posts
What Is The Dispute Really About?
When for some years I headed up a team of forensic accountants in my old national firm, as a matter of policy I always recruited people who were brighter than me. They kept me on my toes and were great problem-solvers. They also worked extremely hard; the customary valediction on a Friday evening was not […]
The Bon Mots Of Sir Alan
Sir Alan Ward has, for the last few years, been the Chairman of the Civil Mediation Council. I have mediated with him, and he was excellent. But as a Court of Appeal judge, Lord Justice Ward also made his mark. I detect two recurring themes in his judgments: encouraging parties not to be so daft […]
Choose Your Expert With Care!
A sign seen in a Boston, Mass. shoe repairer’s window: “Fast Service – High Quality – Low Price – choose any two.” Is that how you choose your experts? I sincerely hope not! Here are my thoughts and suggestions, as a hard-bitten expert of 30 years’ experience. I am a chartered accountant so the slant […]
Is It Sensible To Be Nice In Business?
Attitude to business has changed quite a bit since I first became an accountant. For the first 20 years or so of my career I was a general practitioner, acting for all sorts of clients: lots of tax return clients, lots of market traders and small family companies, up to some quite large organisations including […]
Understanding Business Accounts – What To Look Out For
Lawyers are good with words, and accountants are good with figures. What a pity they don’t talk the same language! Now meet an accountant who is good with words – I have to be, as an experienced expert witness – which means that I must be weak with figures. True? Not really! It’s a pity […]
How Many Routes To Resolution?
Let me count the ways… (Elizabeth Barratt Browning, Sonnet 43) Yes, there are many ways of resolving disputes, and it falls to the skilled legal practitioner to choose the right one. It is no longer the case that going to court is the only way. In criminal cases, court is the almost inevitable route. But […]
Gerroff Moy Land!
Land in the UK is a finite commodity – except on the East Coast for example, where either through natural erosion or a policy of abandoning land to the sea, our small island is growing even smaller – so it is little wonder that arguments over who owns which part of our precious Albion are […]
Give Us The Tools…
…and we will do the job. In this case, the job is to value a holding of shares in a private company, and the tools are the details about the company which the valuer needs to be able to perform such valuation. A recent High Court (Chancery) decision should be helpful. The case is Cosmetic […]
How To Get Best Value Out Of Your Expert
I have gone on alarmingly in the legal press about forensic accountancy, mediation and even expert determination. Perhaps it is time to talk about experts generally, and about how you litigators can use them to get best value for the benefit of your clients – and your own reputation. The first point to consider is […]
But For The Accident…
…and some pitfalls to avoid. Liability and causation are matters for lawyers, but there is then the problem of what a claimant could be expected to have earned but for the RTA, the clinical negligence, or the criminally inflicted injury. Early editions of Kemp & Kemp had a chapter on how to calculate the employed […]