# 95. They are never happy

John Fytit’s International Legal Problem Page.

YOUR LEGAL QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Dear John

My lawyer has nagged me for years about making a will.  He said it is one of the cheapest legal things that I can do.  I finally gave him instructions but he expressed no joy at my change of heart. He then charged me like there was no tomorrow.

What's going on?

TN, Mauritius

Dear TN,

In the past, there was always an unspoken understanding that a client, having made a will, would do the right thing and promptly fall off the perch.  Now, even clients who have every intention of pegging it, seem to hang on.

Medical practice has changed. It used to be three score years and ten and that was your lot but now doctors  seem to go all out to keep people going. Losing a few patients, here and there, no longer seems acceptable to the medical profession. Doctors say that they are just trying to meet the elevated expectations of relatives as a result of hospital dramas.

Worse still, clients are being encouraged by well-meaning financial planners and others in the finance industry to make wills long before they have any intention of dying at all.  

Therefore, will prices which have traditionally been based on a quick turnaround, have had to go up. Some firms keep prices down by offering an Early Bird Discount to try to attract the more serious players who although dying still find it hard to resist a bargain. 

Try saying that you haven't been feeling well that may help.

JF

Send your legal questions to john.fytit@lawanddisorder.com.au

Warning:

1. Relying on legal advice from a fictitious cartoon character although cheap is imprudent.  However your own lawyer is always available as a poor second.
2. John will try to deal with your question in this eZine.  As John is a two dimensional cartoon character it will not be possible for him to enter into personal correspondence with readers. 
3. John like some other lawyers is not to be trusted with serious legal questions.

John Fytit is the name of the central cartoon charter in Law & Disorder cartoons which started in Hong Kong in 1992. He is from the fictitious Hong Kong firm Fytit & Loos (pronounced “Fight it and Lose”). A very unsuccessful name as people read “Fytit” as “Fit it”. The International Problem Page started in 2005.

(c) Paul Brennan 2011. All rights reserved. 

Click here for the relaunched "John Fytit’s International Legal Problem Page". Extracts also appear  on this blog.

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# 83. They give advice which can divide families

Legal message to fathers

After years of striving to bring home more and more bacon, fathers realise that however much bacon is brought home, there never seems to be quite enough.  For instance, daughter's wedding costs are adjusted to suit the money available as are demands for shoes, tops, foreign holidays, new cars etc.  Many fathers react to this by adopting a simple Buddhist-like life style knowing that any extravagance on their part may trigger another round of spending by the rest of the family. 

However, it does not need to be this way.  Fathers who turn to their lawyers for a solution have been advised to channel monthly family income to the lawyer’s trust account and allow their lawyer to deal with requests for finance by family members.   Such is the saving that there is soon enough money to accommodate any sensible request by the children.  Lawyers ensure that rather than the usual handouts, money is given to children by way of documented loans.  In some cases, it has been possible to reclassify previous handouts as loans, thus increasing the family's capital base.

The debts are immediately factored out creating a fund which can be the subject of further loans or just saved.  Factors rather than parents will pursue children for repayment thus reducing family contention.  Indeed, if children fall behind in repayments, parents have the funds immediately available to bail them out by way of further loans.  Children soon learn the value of money and some even stop approaching their parents for money at all.

Fathers can soon easily afford the gardeners and tradesmen to undertake the jobs that they tend to avoid doing each weekend.

Fathers will finally be able to afford the Harley Davidsons, Hawaiian Shirts and gold chains which make their life a little brighter.

With the help of their lawyer, fathers can forsake their unfulfilling and impoverished existence to become once again the fun loving, generous people they once were before they had children.    

(c) Paul Brennan 2010  

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#18 They are breeding

Lonely Hearts

High Court Judge seeks understanding lady for brow beating maybe more.
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Financial Planner (no previous convictions) wltm# well heeled mature (if possible aged) partner.
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Accountant, bald, glasses, nsoh* seeks financially prudent soul mate to share a life which may not be long but will certainly seem so.
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A sole legal practitioner in regional Australia wltm person of their dreams. A knowledge of conveyancing desirable but not essential.
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Senior Partner, who has worked hard to establish a thriving law firm, now wishes to marry. Suitable candidates must be non-lawyers who are prepared to comment on all aspects of the firm decision making process and lord it over the other partners and staff. The right candidate will be supplied with a BMW and a life style which is conducive to sticking their oar in.
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Interested? Please apply in confidence to John Fytit
# wltm Would like to meet.
* nsoh. No sense of humour.

Extract from "The International Legal Problem Page" where lawyer John Fytit solves your legal problems

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# 6. They have trouble thinking outside the box

Lawyers must face the fact that the Gay Rights Movement appears to have made more progress in the last thirty years, in the acceptance stakes, than lawyers have made in the last three millennia.

They have attempted change. The “Plain English” push in the 1970’s was a call for lawyers to discard legalese and Latin. Since then lawyers have been demystifying the law only to find their clients have since adopted the “3 figure acronym” and text messaging. Clients have not really appreciated the move to “Plain English”, especially as financial institutions now insist on documents being read. So lawyers are understandably careful about what they try next.

Clients seem to want change. But what? Here are 5 suggestions to consider:

• A community focus. An unhealthy focus on “conflict of interest” e.g. Lessor/lessee, seller/buyer can double the legal costs and create a negative “us and them” culture? A Legal Community of lawyers, judges, police, victims and criminals could work together to foster compromise solutions. Under this inclusive approach even Axe-murderers would be stakeholders and surely that would be far safer for everyone.

• Improved listening? On the face of it this would drive fees up. Large firms could create Dispute Listening Departments and bring in specialist “listeners”, especially to cover for younger lawyers, who find this so difficult. Sole practitioners may delegate this to their secretaries.

• A value based pricing structure? Lawyers resist this but what firm would not gain valuable customer service points if they discontinued bills and just sought donations.

• More government funded legal programs? For instance, disputes between neighbours could be resolved by encouraging one party to move, using stamp duty concessions and assistance with estate agents’ commission.

• A new paradigm. Could legal issues be resolved by using visualization and meditative techniques? Well, could they? It is now generally accepted that in any journey, the universe can conspire to assist in achieving a goal. For instance, the stressful conveyancing process could be avoided if the seller died and unexpectedly left the property to the purchaser in his will. Rather than suing adversaries a client could just wait for them to die. A visit to a lawyer could be a more holistic experience combining legal advice and group client discussions. This could be followed by “add value” services such as massage, colonic irrigation and finished off with a Tarot reading. A visit to a lawyer, now so often rushed by the pressure of billable hours, may take up to a day and leave clients feeling refreshed.

Lawyers may argue that Shakespeare only wrote “Let’s kill all the lawyers” as there were no Financial Planners around at that time. They may compare themselves favourably to other professions. After all, unlike banker/money lenders, they have never been declared illegal or thrown out of the temple. However, the “writing has been on the wall” for a considerable period of time and change may be long overdue.

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