Lawyers Seeking Clients, Clients Seeking Lawyers: Sources of Contingency Fee Cases And Their Implications for Case Handling

Where do the clients of contingency fee lawyers come from, and what are the implications of client sources for contingency fee practice? Those are the questions this paper considers, drawing upon multiple sources of data. The analysis shows that relatively few clients come to lawyers’ offices in response to advertising. Rather, it is the more traditional route of reputationally based referrals that bring in the vast majority of contingency fee clients. The importance of maintaining a reputation that will draw in future clients tends to curb the potential for abuses created by the inherent conflict of interest between lawyer and client that the contingency fee creates.     

Tendenzen der Gegenwartskultur: Zwischen Normalismus und Vergewöhnlichung

Der Aufsatz thematisiert in konzeptueller und empirischer Hinsicht Aspekte von Normalität. Zum einen werden verschiedene Ansätze behandelt, die Normalität als eine Ebene und als ein Resultat praktischer Wirklichkeitskonstruktion entwerfen. Als besonders anschlussfähig und weiterführend erweisen sich Konzepte und Argumente der Differenzierungstheorie, der Diskurstheorie, der Zivilisationstheorie, der Habitustheorie, der Rahmentheorie und der Stigmatheorie. Zum anderen ist es das Ziel, gegenläufige Entwicklungstendenzen in der Normalitätskonstruktion der Gegenwartskultur zu identifizieren und aufzuklären. Diese Tendenzen werden unter den Titeln ?Normalismus“ (J. Link) und ?Vergewöhnlichung“ (J. Weiß) diskutiert.     

The New Zealand Law Commission Report on Access to Court Records

The first part of this article was published in the Commonwealth Law Bulletin, Volume 33, No 2. The article examines various elements that form part of a modern public fiscal management law as well as the role played by key players and puts forward a number of proposals for reform. Also examined in this article are elements impacting on the effective implementation of a modern fiscal law. The author moreover draws on a wide array of case law to propose core definitions of key fiscal law. While the preoccupation of this article is primarily legal in focus, the author cautions that unless other elements for effective re‐engineering, such as training and proper remuneration, are in place, the benefits mooted by such a legal regime may not materialise. The ultimate aim of a legal and regulatory framework supporting a modern financial management system is for increased accountabilities, transparency and value for money. Where these principles permeate the system of public financial management, from the identification and accounting of public money and the design and content of the Budget or public expenditure system, to the monitoring of the expenditure, the demands of the governed for better government and the protection of the public interest are met. So too are the demands of the governed for better government from the governing and the promotion of the public interest.