Litigation Land

To a crusty cantankerous old lawyer like me, a fortnight of Disneyland and other theme parks is about as far away from an ideal holiday as leaving the planet altogether.
But sometimes one just has to give with the punches, go along with the crowd and bury oneself in clichés. There was no getting away from the manicured roads leading to the world of Disney (every blade of grass of regulation length, the tarmac as smooth as a billiard table). Then you arrive, and smiling helpers usher you into vast car parks, and encourage you onto trains which whisk you to where all the fun is (and where you can painlessly run up huge bills on your credit card).
And the music infuses into your blood _ a saccharin-sweet undemanding happy melody which never stops and numbs you to the real world outside, which you cannot see anyway because the fantasy is all around you and everybody must be happy or leave the park.
So you set your face in a look of mild indulgence and watch the people. And occasionally, just occasionally, you run out of excuses and allow yourself to be taken on a roller coaster or a horror trip (with the taunting warning that those of a nervous disposition or weak heart should not participate: just the sort of challenge to ensure that a cantankerous lawyer does take part).
You are jolted and shaken, and sprayed with water. Creatures from other planets leer at you; ghosts and ghouls scream and rattle their chains; you suffer the indignity of being forced into positions of intimacy with strangers as you travel into lost planet full of dinosaurs.
And as if that were not enough you are required to sit in a boat which travels slowly, very very slowly, past hundreds of life sized dolls which move mechanically to the tune of "It's a small world". For some the trauma of that is so great that they suffer simultaneously all DSM 4 symptoms (the criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) whenever they hear those infuriatingly innocent voices and that song.
Then just when you think that things really cannot get any worse you find yourself, as I did, being hauled out in front of an audience of a thousand watching an enactment of the Lion King and made to stick your fingers beside your nose and grunt in imitation of a warthog. I ask you, as right thinking members of a distinguished profession, how a solicitor, already looking ridiculous in shorts and a Mickey Mouse T shirt, can maintain any semblance of dignity in those circumstances.
* * *
I cannot remember now whether it was during the free fall in the House of Horror or while coming down a particularly long water slide at Typhoon Lagoon that I hit upon what could be the final solution for us all.
What we do not have, on either side of the Atlantic, is a theme park designed by lawyers, for lawyers, even cantankerous ones.
The Law Society should show that it has the interests of the profession at heart. With Legal Aid being doomed in the Queen's speech, there is no time to lose. There is still some spare land in Florida for the creation of Litigation Land.
It would be a departure from what has gone before. One of the themes would be to bring the law back where it belongs. For too long, lawyers have not had a look in. American theme parks are so safe that no one has had a decent compensation claim for years. But Litigation Land will change that.
The car parks will be rutted and pot holed. If visitors do not succeed in breaking their ankles on the way in, they certainly will not be able to resist the slime covered footpaths.
There will be no obvious way to pay your admission, but unsuspecting customers who wander in will be ambushed with court summonses served by bailiffs dressed as bushes.
The restaurants will sell snails in all ginger beer bottles. Smoked salmonella will compete on the putrid shelves with gastronomic enterocoli. Coffee will be sold at scalding temperature in cups designed to topple without provocation.
All the goods in the shops will be stolen; and at every corner shady men will lure unsuspecting punters with expensive watches still dented from their recent plunge from the rear of a pantechnicon.
The rides will be the rejects from unsympathetic Eastern Block countries. They will be designed so as to achieve a balance between modest damages, and keeping the greatest possible number of lawyers in work. Injuries will therefore be confined to whiplashes and fractures of the lesser bones in the leg.
No cuddly animals will entertain the brats. Here Judges will enfold small children in their robes and spirit them away, while barrels of flour drop on unsuspecting heads.
Among the attractions will be mock trials where the customers live through a real live case. What they will not know is that the sentences will be real, and they will be detained in gaol for the duration of their holidays. No chance of getting away lightly by making grunting noise. Other customers will be able to pay to throw eggs and tomatoes at them.
Everyone knows how stressed lawyers are now (more even than junior hospital doctors - and that is official. I could have told them that years ago). Your needs will be catered for too. Small offices will be provided in Litigation Land complete with faxes and computers. But do remember that this is a theme park. The computers will squirt water through their screens; and the dictating machines will make your voice sound like Mr Bean. The beautiful secretaries will turn out to be hairy men; and a special squad of senior partners will call on you every ten minutes to tell you to get on with it.

You know, suddenly looking back, it was a beautiful sunset over the Epcot Centre the night of the firework display. And nobody got hurt, not even slightly. And being inveigled by a wild haired woman to grunt like a warthog still beats appearing before a Master any day.

This article first appeared in Solicitors Journal in December 1998