Legal profession urged to shake off greedy image

A High Court judge has urged the legal profession to try and “shake off its greedy, ambulance-chasing image”.

Mr Justice Michael Peart said court costs may, for many people, amount to a denial of their constitutional right of access to justice or, at least, a significant obstruction.

The judge said there was little to be said in favour of the time-honoured adversarial system of litigation “unless one is a lawyer with a busy practice to whom the expense is an inescapable attraction and delay an irrelevance”.