Britons Sue and are Sued

As simplistic as conventional wisdom tends to hold, many believe that US citizens are especially litigation crazy and that this is perhaps correlated with the high number of lawyers in that country. An article in The Times now quotes a survey and makes the claim that Britons are becoming "litigation junkies" too . It uses the fact that every year, 2 million people seek legal advice and that thousand consult lawyers weekly.

On its own, this blogger sees no reason to conclude that that makes for a nation of vexatious or over-exuberant litigants. However, when one sees that 1 in 500 visits to the hair salon results in a legal dispute, with a further 1 in 1000 visits to a restaurant leading to a court battle over the menu, then perspective sets in. Added to this is the interesting fact that 1 in 20 has taken legal advice over rogue traders or shoddy builders.

While wondering whether increased isolation may be a driver, I encountered the data that the same survey revealed that 1in 50 of the instances in which advice was sought was against a family member and even this was with divorce excepted.

Apparently, when people are not in conflict with one another, then they are faced with infractions of the criminal law, a trend driven by increased regulation of people's lives through law and the creep of the nanny state. Men are more prone to committing crime and lead in committing motoring offenses while women are far more astute at altering price tags while shopping. I wonder why.

The greater point in this fine article by Frances Gibb is not as much that there's a spike in litigation but that the subject of litigation appears to be getting particularly petty. On the other hand, it also shows an expansion of the quest for advice across many more frontiers in people's lives. Concern about the outcomes and costs are also significant factors and this is proof perhaps that legal action is a strategic game.