Milton Keynes, England, United Kingdom
Often people waste 1000s of pounds if not millions in legal bills by using the wrong set of lawyers, pursuing a flawed legal strategy or perhaps driven by ego gratification or excessive self-righteousness! This is money for several Land Rovers chucked down the drain! This is where I come in. I am a former solicitor and an Advocate of the Supreme Court of India. I have run my own law firm employing British solicitors under me and have litigated engaging other solicitor firms too paying them hefty bills and in the process losing tens of thousands of pounds. Prior to engaging solicitors it is important to bear in mind to write simple letters to the other side without giving too much away especially about plans to engage a solicitor at a future date. I call these letters little fishing expeditions! A solicitors’ notice always alerts the other side about an impending litigation! I can also look at solicitors’ letters and assist you in raising relevant issues they might have overlooked or draft a client enquiry letter which could keep your solicitors on their toes. My services are not offered in substitution of a solicitor’s services but to complement them to ensure that my client gets the result he wants from his solicitor which is his right.
Always wanted to write a novel with a historical and religious undertone with a little bit of economics, geopolitics thrown in. Read through the Five Books of Moses, the Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagavatam, the Quran and loads of other periodicals and articles on globalisation! My idea was to find out the reasons behind how a resource rich Africa or India has so much poverty whilst relatively less resourced countries like Switzerland or Germany are so wealthy. Had to cut through a lot of economic cliches to arrive at my own conclusions. I would basically argue that the poor countries have a very poor governance system. It is nothing to do with race or climate or democracy if it were so China today would not have been the second largest economy in GDP/dollar terms or the largest in the world by PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) tabulation. Up until the 17th century both India and China together accounted for about 70% of the global GDP which shrank to about 1% each by early 1940s! So what could have happened for these countries to fail so miserably and then pick up growth say from 1979 in the case of China and 1991 in the case of India?
Was in charge of a wide variety of case load including advising the board on corporate advisory issues covering the Financial Services Authority (FSA and FSMA issues) and BaFin the German financial regulator as regards likely future response. Contributed articles to the in-house magazine such as "the Parable of the Titanic and the Iceberg a Case Study on Regulation for UK Companies with an American Perspective", actively took part in dispute resolution arising out of the purchase of a stockbroker cum corporate advisory firm shadowed by High Court injunctions. Resolved a sack full of debt recovery matters ordained by the High Court but got the bailiffs to recall their recovery proceedings on the strength of sound legal interpretations tendered on the ambit of the Law of Transfer of Property Act notwithstanding the High Court injunctions, secured a 28K reduction in the council taxes of a vacant office in London, appeared in court proceedings in highly contentious IT Contract disputes, handled personnel matters including litigation in Employment Tribunals and bilateral redundancy negotiations. Worked also as an election agent for the Chief Executive who contested the Bedford parliamentary elections as an independent candidate traversing the complexities of the Representation of the Peoples Act in the UK.
Worked as a retained consultant cum adviser to Hegarty LLP, solicitors a multi-partner, multi-disciplinary/departmental solicitor firm with over 100 employees on the basis of a four year retainer cum consultancy agreement governed by a confidentiality clause.
Secured a person specific waiver from the Law Society from the operation of the 3 yrs PQE norm under Practice Rule 13 (1) (a) to enable me to set up a solicitor firm without ever working in a UK law firm which enabled me to appoint solicitors senior to me under me.Led a team of 29 people including solicitors with separate conveyance, wills & probate, mortgage advisory, debt recovery departments. Implemented one of the first call centre and practice management systems amongst Peterborough solicitor firms and expanded marketing to London with a freephone number to "in-source" work from the 8 London Yellow Pages Directory areas and secured the Law Society's consent to out source KYC verifications through registered solicitors in London. Implemented the training of all secretarial and fee earning staff in new Mountain Software Practice Management System through hectic diplomacy and by a process of "Management by Wandering About" with all my staff on a day to day basis to keep them productive by keeping them happy. Set up the non-regulated financial services such as Mortgage, Insurance Advisory by bringing in Mr. John Bradwood an ex IFA and set up Debt Recovery Department with Mr. Lance Bloom to explore a via media option between IVA and Bankruptcy under the Insolvency Act where banks and lenders agreed to a minimum payment to avoid their borrowers resorting to IVA or Bankruptcy where the lenders would get less or no money at all but more money if they acceded to our person specific individually negotiated re-negotiated agreements. Mr. Bloom taught me the principle, "Income is Vanity and Profit is Reality"