​We are pleased to report that the crowd funding website, CrowdJustice has raised over £5,000 to enable Unity to instruct Jason Coppel to investigate the culpability of various public bodies who seem to us to have failed in their job to protect public money in relation to the Garden Bridge issue. We will be asking him to advise on the possible liability of TFL, the Charity Commission and the former Mayor, Boris Johnson as well as the Trustees themselves. Unity's involvement has been reported in the attached article in the Architects Journal. Watch this space ! 

This was a headline from the Law Society Gazette from 23 July 2019. In a case called Timokhina v Timokhin, The Court of Appeal reduced counsel’s fees for a hearing about who should pay the costs of the substantive hearing. The Respondent husband, represented by Withers, turned up to the hearing mob handed with leading and junior counsel, charging £25k and £12.5k respectively whilst the appellant had junior counsel at a modest £1.5k. The Court of Appeal rightly disallowed leading counsel’s fees entirely and slashed the junior’s fees in half.
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Such behaviour gives lawyers a bad name. What were Withers doing turning up with leading and junior counsel for a costs hearing and why didn’t they negotiate a reasonable fee with the clerks. I have no doubt that Withers turned up with their own team, all busy scribbling superfluous notes! This is a particularly bad example but the number of times in my career, I have been confronted in court by leading and junior counsel, a partner, associate and trainee with somebody expected to pay for the charade!