The Bleak House lawyers died out with Dickens — didn't they?
by Richard Harrison
CHARLES DICKENS’s Bleak House famously epitomises the evils caused by long-drawn-out law suits. Last week, in a new series, the BBC revisited the case of Jarndyce v Jarndyce in the High Court of Chancery. But any production will be more than just a period piece. Our present system, with its claims instead of writs, ban on Latin tags and streamlined trial management, is litigation 21st-century style. However, Bleak House still has resonances today.
How would Jarndyce v Jarndyce look in the post-Woolf era? There is at least no fog. The man from Shropshire is in his fields; Miss Flite’s birds are in quarantine and there happens to be a small inheritance dispute among the heirs to the Jarndyce properties after the intestacy of old Mr Jarndyce. But now we have co-operation between parties; the commencement of the proceedings is a scene of rejoicing as the ground is prepared by exchange of information and estimates of costs. The parties ’ lawyers have identified the salient issues and embarked on mediation with a view to an amicable resolution of the matter.
And what of the lawyers? Most eminent of all, Mr Tulkinghorn is, and remains, an omniscient, scheming villain with his fingers in every pie and the secrets of the great hidden within his heart and his filing cabinets. His offices were in Lincoln’s Inn Fields: now, of course, they would more likely be in Mayfair, if he remained a sole practitioner, or in Docklands or Spitalfields if the “magic circle” made a better springboard. He would nevertheless have to cope with extensive internal client relationship management and money-laundering procedures that might inhibit his machinations.
The novel is built on the process of legal document production. Mr Tulkinghorn delegates his requirements to Mr Snagsby, the law stationer, who sub-contracts to the mysterious Nemo. If this process were outsourced in the modern way, digitally to India, the plot would, regrettably, founder.
Mr Kenge, of the firm Kenge & Carboy, is a less-exalted practitioner but one whose flights of orotund discourse bestow on him the soubriquet “Conversation”: “We are a great country, Mr Jarndyce, we are a very great country. This is a great system, Mr Jarndyce, and would you wish a great country to have a little system? Now, really, really!” In the 21st century, of course, he would be extolling the system through BBC News 24 and the Law Society website, becoming what is now called a “media tart”.
Mr Guppy and Mr Weevle are trainee solicitors to be proud of, if the Legal Practice Course and an extensively structured training regime have not crushed their entrepreneurial spirits.
And then there is Mr Vholes, a character who would be recognisable in various guises today: the Holborn hack or the representative of an ambitious regional firm with a recently opened London presence. Vholes is a solicitor appointed to represent the interests of Richard Carstone when Carstone perceives that they might diverge somewhat from those of his guardian, Mr Jarndyce. Vholes is well able to identify the full extent of that conflict and expand the gulf to his own benefit.
Vholes is a Dickensian lawyer who could still be held up as a beacon in our more client-driven times. He represents the Law Society’s vision of client care in all its glory. “
Whenever you want me, you will find me here. Summon me anywhere, and I will come. During the long vacation, sir, I shall devote my leisure to studying your interests more and more closely and to making arrangements for moving heaven and earth (including, of course, the Chancellor) after Michaelmas term; and when I ultimately congratulate you, sir,” says Vholes “when I ultimately congratulate you, sir, with all my heart, on your accession to fortune — which, but that I never give hopes, I might say something further about — you will owe me nothing beyond whatever little balance may be then outstanding of the costs as between solicitor and client not included in the taxed costs allowed out of the estate.”
In other words, Vholes exemplifies a number of professional virtues that remain desirable today. He provides complete dedication to advancing the interests of his clients (for a fair remuneration). He identifies the precise areas of conflict that entitle a client to the advantages of his dedicated legal services. He communicates transparent information about prospective costs, including the inevitable shortfall between costs recoverable from the opposition on the standard basis and the amount due between solicitor and client. And he treats the law as a business rather than a profession.
Once you accept the precept that there can never be too much openness between solicitor and client, Vholes is a role model to the profession rather than the dried-up, feline moneygrubber usually portrayed. It is Vholes who appreciates the significance of the last Jarndyce will, albeit he defers to Kenge in the exposition of its contents and, in our speculative update, it will be he who joins with Kenge in producing it at the mediation that eventually resolves the dispute to the satisfaction of all concerned, including the lawyers.
With Jarndyce v Jarndyce out of the way, there are many more cases to manage in and out of Chancery. A great system indeed. But ask any present-day litigant involved in a similar dispute if the days of Jarndyce are truly consigned to history — the answer will depend on whether the legal costs have consumed the estate.
The author is a partner in Laytons
