Lawyer Monthly - December 2021 Edition

23 DEC 2021 WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM into insolvency by banks calling in their overdrafts or loans in situations where trading was problematic and finance was difficult to come by. What we are to do, then, is try to resolve these disputes based on what would be fair and reasonable for the circumstances. So we are totally independent, we are neutral; we are an ombudsman service. I am the chief adjudicator, which means that I am responsible for the way we work out what counts as fair and reasonable. Could you give us a brief overview of what the BBRS does? It is a free service for any small business that has an outstanding complaint against their bank but is too large for the Financial Ombudsman Service and has not already taken their complaint to court or another redress scheme. They have to have taken that complaint to their bank first and been dissatisfied. When they bring it to us, we provide expert support, helping them to articulate what their complaint is, organising their documentation, and generally supporting them all the way through the process. We only launched in February, so we are still a very new service, but we are very optimistic that we can provide a much- needed service to businesses. true that whilst becoming a judge is a competitive process, it now works on an open application basis. It is a competency- based process, so it is not your experience that counts, but what competencies you have and can demonstrate. That is why I would encourage people who do not have direct experience to apply regardless. However, you do need to be able to show how you deal with difficult legal problems, communicate well, manage work efficiently and work well with others. These are all things, of course, that solicitors have to do every day as part of their jobs. I am pleased to say that there are now far more solicitors applying for judicial roles – everything fromdeputydistrict judge (which means part-time county court judge) to tribunal judge to Deputy High Court Judge. I think tribunals are an excellent place for solicitors to sit, as you will be working with colleagues who have different viewpoints and different expertise. Also, the sitting pattern is relatively easy to accommodate with your day job, as it is usually at a time of your choosing. You can accept or decline an invitation to sit; I had one this morning asking if I would be available on 16 January, so you have quite a lot of time to say no. It is also much less formal. A court is obviously quite a formal environment and an intimidating one. What other advice, then, would you give to a solicitor who is considering pursuing a judicial role? Crucial, I think, is to prepare. There are quite of solicitor applicants who do not really understand what the role that they are applying for is. They do not prepare good examples to show that they know how to do the various things that I have just described. So it is not enough just to say “I have been a senior partner at such and such a firm for donkey’s years, I could do this in my sleep”. You have to give real- life examples of what you did in a particular situation to demonstrate that you can do it. We also put in a test. Literally, there is a role-play in the selection process which is pretty daunting. You play the character of the judge and there are actors playing two characters apart from you. Of course you are given a scenario where things go wrong, and you are invited to do and say what you think would be right in the circumstances. The process has a lot of support online, and I do say to anyone who is seriously thinking of it: do prepare, do talk to people about it. The Law Society has an excellent scheme of solicitor judges who are prepared to support you. So there are a lot of people who can help give you a better shot. Just in closing, perhaps you could tell us a little bit about your new role as chief adjudicator of the Business Banking Resolution Service. The BBRS is, again, very much the David and Goliath dynamic, because it deals with small businesses who are now going up against their bank. It should not take much to appreciate that they are not going to be able to sue their bank very easily, even if they have the money. Some of the cases that we are looking at rise from the financial crisis of 12 years ago, where many businesses feel that they were forced Oliver Sullivan, Editor at Lawyer Monthly with Alexandra Marks “ I think it is important to be inspiring people in this community to apply, even if, like me, you are not a litigator and not an advocate.