Other jurisdictions can try but those who know lawyerball – as David Squires obviously does – know that England & Wales is the true home of lawyerball.
People will say too much money has been thrown at the national stadium at the Rolls Building, or that £10,000 issue fees are pricing out the traditional trial-going fan. But you can get yourself into the County Court at Central London for a fraction of that - in fact, if you ignore a court order for long enough people will literally take you there for free - and the number of litigants in person we've got now shows the game is thriving at a grassroots level.
They simply do not build courts like the Thomas More building anymore. Sure, the cynics will say that's because asbestos is illegal now, but I'm talking about the feel of the place. The sheer blood-and-guts, no-you-cant-have-a-counter-appointment, no-we-wont-pick-up-the-phone hostility of it. It's a thrill. Like going to the Den or Elland Road. It's actually a little-known fact that the lion in the coat of arms in every lawyerballroom was inspired by Millwall FC's badge. It just makes you remember why you first kicked a lawyerball all those years ago. We'll miss atmosphere like that when we're all lawyerballing in the sanitised lawyerballrooms of more modern times.
Ok, the national game is going through a period of transition, but with the new Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood at the wheel I hope we can all get behind the team and build on this jurisdiction's great lawyerballing legacy.
I absolutely love David Squires’ cartoons. This one is especially good and just so firmly in my wheelhouse it’s untrue.
#Lawyerball #Lawyers #NoOneLikesUs #WeDoCare
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