Kirthi G. Dunusinghe

The law is at its most useful to people who are having the worst week of their lives — and those are usually the people least equipped to work out what it says. A deed drawn carelessly, a matter nobody answered, an agreement that was never explained: small things at the time, and hard to undo years later.

That is the work, and after more than two decades it has not changed much. Listen to what has actually happened. Say plainly what the law provides for and what it does not, including when the answer is not the one you were hoping for. Prepare the documents properly, and take the matter through the steps the law sets out so that it is decided on its merits rather than on a technicality nobody noticed.