Lawyer Monthly Magazine - August 2019 Edition

However, my firm has six other lawyers, and between them and me, we cover all legal work. We also have support staff and trainees. The bread and butter jobs done by my firm are the purchase, sale and lease of property. But it is rather hum-drum and fairly routine. That doesn’t present for me much of a challenge. So, I leave it to others. I and a colleague do “dispute resolution”, which may be a fancy phrase for “fighting in court”. However nowadays, court costs and delays being what they are, some disputes are resolved out of court. Another side of the law business is what is now termed “Wealth Protection”. This encompasses everything from making a Will, to actively planning one’s resources in such a way that the impact of Inheritance Taxes is minimised. Some people allow their assets to grow and then there is a catastrophe when the State gobbles up a lot of their wealth in taxes. So be warned. When you die it is too late!! The most common type of dispute is usually claims for some form of money. It can be a simple debt owed, but often it can be a company claiming SCOTTISH LAW I found the time, 50 years ago, to qualify as an aeroplane pilot, and I flew a lot, including long- distance and transatlantic ferry flights. I owned and managed an airline and was a director of others. For 20 years I was a volunteer Air Ambulance Pilot for St John’s Ambulance Air Wing. I have carried sick people and their relatives, surgical teams (in transplant terminology we referred to the harvest/retrieval surgical team as “the Vultures”). I carried everything from livers and kidneys, and hearts and lungs to blood and serum. All the above has shaped my life. I now mainly deal in aviation law advising carriers, crew and passengers alike. I also occasionally and sadly find myself acting for a deceased’s relatives, where the death was in the course of air transport. I find myself also defending pilots when they are prosecuted for some alleged wrongful act. In addition to that I run my law firm. I am involved in all facets of legal practice as would be expected from someone who has been doing law for so many years. The only thing I try to avoid is divorce, and especially my own. My name is Frank Cannon. I am a Scottish Lawyer, and I have been practising as a lawyer for 51 years. My firm is Cannons Law Practice LLP, and we practise in Glasgow. Glasgow is the unacknowl- edged capital of Scotland as it has a third of Scotland’s population in the city and its dormitory surroundings. It is a fantastic place to live and work. The city motto is “Peo- ple make Glasgow” and I think that nicely sums up the city. I am age 78 now, at a time when most sane people would be thinking of retiring and taking it easy. But I do not play golf, and all my life I have breathed Law. My Company Motto is “our work is law”. And that says it all and just about sums up my life. Except I have found the time to find my one and only wife. Having been married for 52 years I still introduce her as “my first wife”. I also found time to have 2 daughters, and 4 grandchildren. JOHN HAYES THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SCOTTISH LAW AND UK LAW Speaking to Frank Cannon, who has been in the legal game for over 50 years, he shares his journey in the legal sphere and how the Scottish legal system is different and focuses on compassion above all things. 158 Hyndland Road, Glasgow, G12 9HZ Phone: +44 (0)141 204 5115 | Email: office@cannonslaw.com | www.cannonslaw.com that another company has done “the dirty on them”. It takes all types to make the world go round. A typical example I am looking into now has an international flavour. A company in India has a contract which entitles it to a commission on sales introduced to a UK company. The agreement lasts for three years and is aimed at very lucrative work. But the Indian company says the UK company deliberately delayed stitching up the work until the commission agreement had expired. And they are now refusing to pay. It has a huge price tag to the dispute. This has two ramifications. First it means that the Indian company will not give up. Secondly the sheer size of the prize at stake is a persuasive motive for the UK company to have caused the delay in the first place. This brings me to a very important topic. It is called “value for money”. It should be obvious that in dispute resolution, the mechanism has to be “economic”. They say there is no point in spending several thousand pounds to claim three thousand pounds. Except that sometimes, just sometimes, it has to be done. This involves 92 WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM | AUG 2019 Thought Leader By Frank Cannon, Cannons Law Practice LLP