Peter Thompson QC reports from the front line on the challenges of litigating by proxy
A recent issue of NLJ columnist Stephen Gold’s highly readable ‘Civil way’ included a reference to a little-known decision in the Birmingham County Court: Kassam v Gill and Another [2018] Lexis Citation 96, Case No E3PP8048 (see ‘Civil way’, NLJ 2 November 2018, p17). In this case a landlord’s agent was found to have engaged in a ‘reserved legal activity’, contrary to s 14 of the Legal Services Act 2007, by conducting a possession claim that the client had signed for as a litigant in person.
What caught my eye was the argument of the agent’s counsel that his client’s conduct was no different from people who give legal advice and assistance to their grandmother. She might need help in issuing a claim against a recalcitrant lodger or in defending an unjustified service charge and a legally trained relative might come to her rescue out of grandfilial loyalty, without necessarily holding a practice certificate.
Statutory restrictions
This hypothetical scenario is not far-fetched. Anyone who has had legal training
