‘Dispute Resolution Must Be Incorporated’

Subash Parshotam of Par­shotam Lawyers aid law­yers must ensure that dispute resolution clauses were incorporated in legal documents, be it a Landlord Tenancy Agreement or a Seller Property Agreement.

He said these processes need­ed to be exhausted first before any litigation.

He said this during his pres­entation at the 25th Attorney-General’s Conference at the Sheraton Fiji Golf and Beach Resort in Nadi on Friday.

“When you are drafting a doc­ument after exchanges with the other side, get it right and this obviously will come only after some experience in the field. Do not hesitate to reach out to other lawyers who are more experienced in the field.

Try­ing to reinvent the wheel, you will end up having stuff in the documents that will lead to dis­putes that will lead to ambigui­ties and litigation.

“I cannot understate that, one is you must have heard the phrase, we act on instructions, fine, you act on instructions but the instructions come af­ter your advice to them (cli­ents) and when you give your advice to them, you need to counsel your clients as to what to do.

They may choose to fol­low the advice or may not, but in that counsel that you give, you need to bring in this issue of Alternative Dispute Resolu­tions. If there’s a dispute, don’t just rush off. I can’t emphasise enough the importance of al­ternative dispute resolutions.”

He said it was crucial that contracts were constantly re­viewed to minimise risks that might be associated with it.

“As legal practitioners, don’t ever think that you know eve­rything. When the time comes, engage an expert if there is a valuation matter. Engage a valuer if there is a matter that deals with admiralty law and you don’t have much knowl­edge about it.

“You engage with experts don’t try to do everything your­self and I can assure you doing this for the past 40 plus years, that the moment you pass that power to someone else to give your opinion on you will feel more comfortable it about rather than you being worried about it,” he said.

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