ABSTRACT
One day, whilst serving my articles of clerkship in London in the early 1970s, I was taken quietly aside by my principal and introduced into the secret art of legal practice. ‘Of course,’ he whispered, slightly apologetically and with an air of conspiracy, ‘you only need to do three things to be a good solicitor.’ After pausing for the drama of the wisdom he was about to bestow and leaning slightly forward and piercing me with his gimlet, bespectacled eyes, he reverently spoke the following three words; ‘Case, Costs, Client,’ and stepped back to observe my reaction. The whispered words hung in the air and time stood still. I stared back, perplexed. After a short pause, he said again, and this time with more emphasis, ‘Case, Costs and Client – you know, the Three Cs!’ After three years at university and fresh (or rather stale) from the College of Law at Lancaster Gate, my head stuffed full of cases, statutes, rules and exceptions to rules, I was confused and a little shocked to hear a real-life practising solicitor summarising the science and art of legal practice in three simple words beginning with a ‘C’!
