42 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
42 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
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Dear Our Lawyer,
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In the light of the Lee Marvin case, I was wondering if there might be
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anything in it for me. While I am not exactly a mistress, there is no doubt
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that the man from the flat upstairs has been down here and done it on three
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occasions, to my certain knowledge. It occurred to me I might be entitled to
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his stereo set, or his electric kettle at the very least. What is my position?
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Firstly, I ought to tell you that the principle of Is There Anything In It For
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Me? has no construction in law. It is not, thank God, the basis upon which
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English Law is founded. That basis remains, Is There Anything In It For Us?
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In your case, the law is still in a state of flux; which means, briefly,
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that we haven't tried it on yet. As in so many other vital areas -- the
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tinned martini, the mobile massage parlour, the cocaine aerosol -- American
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Law is in the juridical vanguard, and it may well be years before the rest of
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the world catches up. Take, for example, plea bargaining: American lawyers
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may now take up to 25% of the damages they obtain for clients, but it could be
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twenty years before English law rights the present injustice against its
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unhappy practitioners, by which time their American brothers will doubtless be
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carrying home 90% or more. Which is as it should be: after all, what good is
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a million dollars to, say, a living vegetable? Can he buy a Maserati with it?
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A power boat? A big Mulatto soubrette?
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What I am trying to say is that whatever the final outcome of the Marvin
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case, the lawyers involved will have found it worth bringing. In YOUR affair,
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I would not even be allowed a go on the electric kettle, and my fee, to judge
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from your letter written on the back of an unpaid United Dairies final demand,
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would be little more than risible. However, the fee is not everything, and
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what we may be looking at is a chance to write a new chapter in the history of
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our law.
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The best place to write it, in my professional view, would be either the
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Sunday People or the Sun, depending on the quality of the snaps we manage to
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arrange. As your lawyers, we should be more than happy to act as your agent
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in the necessary negotiations, for the usual commission, and we look forward
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eagerly to your instructions.
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As to your final question, there's no answer to that! (Morecambe v. Wise,
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Queen's Bench Division, 1971). |