The light over the front door flickers at The Beacon. There is a bit of damp creeping up the plaster and into the wiring. My dad would have fixed it, but he hasn't been there for a year. There is a 'sold' sign at the top of the drive and my heart is breaking. The contract for sale sat on my kitchen table and watched me, taunting me to sign it for days until I gave in. Signing away our family home of 49 years, my memory bank, the place which connects us and where so many important things happened (so many small things, big things, small-big-important things), the walls where I was loved and comforted (and sometimes scolded), cooked for and spoilt (just a bit). The place my brother and I have always run for shelter when life gets difficult. The house is mostly empty now. It smells wrong, and everything looks slightly burnt out. But every time I go back to gather more things the memories jump out of the walls at me like fragments of a life that was once mine but is slipping away. When I...

Civil Lit Tweet's Gordon Exall highlighted a cringeworthy judgment today that really demonstrates the dangers of AI in a legal context. More importantly it demonstrates the particular dangers for people who are not egally trained, and don't know what they are looking for or how to verify results or spot hallucinations and bad points. In this case a litigant in person who was representing herself at a tax tribunal appeal quoted nine AI-generated Tribunal decisions on 'reasonable excuse'. They looked plausible, but when the lawyers smelled a rat, it was discovered that none of them actually existed and they didn't actually reflect the law. Luckily for the litigant in person the tribunal accepted that the litigant in person was unaware of the issue - she hadn't known to check BAILII or The National Archives for the source material. There is a slightly more detailed summary of the case on Gordon's blog (link above), and for those who want to read the full judgment (which has possibly the...

In the golden age of rail travel when I were a lad I didn't need to worry about delay repay. A train delay was a rarity that could be borne with equanimity, even if one couldn't easily spell it. Now, it is a point of principle that on every delayed journey (which, let's face it is every journey taken) I sit and complete the delay repay claim for the previous delayed journey. If the train wifi is up to it. Which it usually isn't. There is a serious point here. Two actually. A toofer bonus. Firstly, a reminder to those who are more junior than me that this is available (I'm sure you already know it), and you should claim for your travel delays where you can. Although I am still currently twitching about a scarring experience involving a fight to the death between Cross Country and Aviva West Coast as to who would compensate me for the rare but wasted first class ticket I bought on the day of the big storm (I know, I practically caused the national rail disruption by stupidly buying a...

Showing my age there, using *that* song title as a name for my post... But then, I am getting pretty ancient. As evidenced by the fact that this month we hit our 23rd wedding anniversary. I say hit, it was more the sort of dull thud that a pigeon makes when it knocks itself out careening into your patio doors. Once again, we've postponed the celebration, romantic weekend away bit of the anniversary. Other things seem more important right now and people need our attention. But we did manage to exchange cards a week after the actual anniversary, and to share a bottle of fizz before collapsing on the sofa in a snooze pile. We family lawyers spend most of our time immersed in other people's relationship breakdowns, how it happened and how it has affected the family. I've been surrounded by broken relationships for almost as long as I've been married (I started my legal training the week after I got married, skipping the first week's lectures to tie the knot). We have a running joke in...