MORE ON FISH FILES: “LEAVE THEM IN THE CORNER UNTIL THEY START TO SMELL”: RECOGNISING THE PROBLEM AND SOLUTIONS

August 9, 2017 · by gexall · in Avoiding negligence claims, Civil Procedure, Members Content

Everyone, at some stage, has a "fish file" - a file that has been left for so long it has started to smell (sometimes literally). Consequently the litigator avoids it and it gets smellier and smellier. These files are always ripe. Ripe, that is, for problems to occur and, generally, for matters to ...

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Tags: Avoiding negligence claims, Avoiding procedural problems

2 Responses

john myles · August 10, 2017 at 08:53:48 · →

One potential solution is for colleagues to agree to swap a file that is in danger of becoming or has become “fishy”. Looking at a problem file with fresh eyes and sometimes a novel approach is better than reluctantly trying to tackle a file that has hitherto sapped your soul. I have tried this in the past and it works.
Paul Rudd · August 16, 2017 at 11:36:33 · →

Another solution is to take the file to another room and work on it with no distractions