Home · Register · Join Upload & Sell

Moderated by: Fred Miranda
Username  

FM Forum Rules
Wedding Resource List
  

FM Forums | Wedding Photographer | Join Upload & Sell

  

Archive 2015 · Jury Service: UK

  
 
ashton lamont
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Jury Service: UK


This is a question for self-employed full-time UK members only.

I have to do jury service shortly. The normal period as advised in the literature supplied is around two weeks though it can be much longer. Obviously this has a serious impact on my ability to complete editing and the other non-shooting aspects of running a photography business on normal weekdays.

Even more worrying is that most of my initial enquiries are made by phone, during weekday business hours (n.b. at the same time as the court would be sitting). and very few people leave an answerphone message; some hide their number so I cannot make a speculative return call. Clearly the inability to respond to these initial enquiries could be very expensive indeed in terms of lost business.

I've no idea why the enquiry channel is so heavily phone; I've had clickable email for many years and until recently that was the most common method by far. I can change my answerphone message obviously to try and gain immediate "sympathy" from callers but so often they hang up the moment a message starts to play.

Does anyone have recent experience of how to present loss of earnings to the court authorities? Employees have it cushy as they can easily provide verification of their losses and expenses Monday to Friday from their day jobs. But what about self-employed, particularly in our line where the courts I suspect may take the view that because most weddings are at weekends and because - as they would see it - there is little other work that shooting on the day, you haven't lost anything at all.

There are small daily allowances designed to offset loss of provable earnings but my bigger concern is my inability to field new enquiries.

Anyone been down this road lately? Thanks.

Pete



Jul 14, 2015 at 04:47 PM
ricardovaste
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Jury Service: UK


Sorry to hear that Pete, very frustrating. Have you tried getting some free legal advice somewhere? Or contacting HMRC?

re: people phoning. For the 2 weeks you'll be away, remove the phone number from your header/logo. Change your contact page (way too much stuff on there). Just put a contact FORM so that people don't have to copy and paste email addresses. And leave an email, phone number. That'll just make things easier for people - at the moment, there is a lot of stuff everywhere, people are just seeing the number at the top next to your logo as it's more immediate. If you can't present a reasonable case for avoiding jury duty, I think those changes for the time you're away will help.

Edited on Jul 15, 2015 at 07:14 AM · View previous versions



Jul 15, 2015 at 04:23 AM
nolaguy
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Jury Service: UK


Pete, the following may not parallel the UK, but for the sake of offering:

I've never experienced it personally but I know one-man operators in the US who've successfully and very simply presented their situation to the courts and been excused from jury duty.

And I hate to even go there but as the objective is to assemble an impartial jury, it's not unheard of for attorneys to eliminate potential jurors because of some bias. Tell then you're a Canon shooter or vice versa...

Good luck with it.

Chuck



Jul 15, 2015 at 05:59 AM
Mark_L
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Jury Service: UK


I admit I don't have first hand experience but my self employed mother got called up. It may depend on the judge, but all-in-all they were VERY unforgiving and when the trial went on longer the judge accepted no reasons relating to work at all. My mother even said she deals with patients who are in-end-of-life scenario (true) and they wouldn't have any of it.

I'd say you have a real uphill battle ahead of you especially so because weddings are weekends. Do you research but this isn't anywhere near as easy to get out of as it is in the US, you'll probably have to lump it and hope like hell you get a straightforward case and everyone on the jury agrees.



Jul 15, 2015 at 07:16 AM
tonyhart
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Jury Service: UK


I've not had to do jury service before, but I do believe that you're allowed to defer it for a couple of occasions before you're duty bound so to speak to do it. I may be wrong about that, but I think it's the case. Might be worth looking into deferring it.


Jul 15, 2015 at 09:13 AM
ashton lamont
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Jury Service: UK


Thanks for the input all.

RV:I haven't tried legal advice. I think I'll see what they have to say during the introduction session which takes place on the first day. Self-employed jurers are required to provide proof of self-employment from HMRC but as far as I can tell there is no mechanism in place to establish loss of earnings, other than getting your accountant to knock something together - the cost of which they specifically exclude :- (

I know where you're coming from as regards to the logo incorporating the contact number and that may well influence which contact channel the prospective client chooses. I designed it deliberately so that the whole logo and number would always be visible even on small smartphones held in portrait aspect when I recoded my site to be mobile-friendly.

I make quite a lot of use of Adwords and the monthly stats from that can be just about the purest indicators of what new clients are actually using i.e. the stats are not polluted by visitors from other sources, existing clients etc. For June my clicks by device type were 40% desktop, 31% mobile, and 29% tablet. So mobile matters and small mobile screens are surprisingly common. Nearly everyone calling calls from their mobile.

I have a lot of content on my Contact Page to differentiate myself from those competitors who commonly give nothing other than a mobile number and a rough geographical location. It seems to be well-received. It serves to some extent as an "about" page would but without the usual syrupy garbage. The email link is clickable to launch the visitors default email client. I dislike contact forms firstly because they seemed to have endless non-functioning issues in the days when DWF was active, and secondly because they can be awkward to use with mobiles.

I'll give it more consideration. I may just try a new answerphone message getting the "jury service" words out ultra-quick at the start to try and gain some sympathy.

TH: As ML alludes to the regulations are much harsher now than they once were. You are allowed to defer just once and only for a year so you risk postponing it from a bad time to an even worse time.

Some cases can be very long, obviously, but even for short ones they stack them up so you have to do several over your allotted time.

Does anyone use one of those phone answering services? That might work; just thought of it.

Pete



Jul 15, 2015 at 11:07 AM
ricardovaste
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Jury Service: UK


Pete, whilst some of that makes sense, my suggestion is short-term whilst you are on jury duty. Not to scrap everything you do, forever.

As a side note, check your insurance. My last policy had a 24/7 legal helpline.



Jul 15, 2015 at 11:47 AM
markcapilitan
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Jury Service: UK


I'm not in UK, but across the sea in Ireland and I had jury duty come up last year. I wrote back explaining what I did & why I couldn't attend & was excused with no issues. There's usually a few jobs where you will be allowed to be excused but you have to get in touch with them to explain....self employed people seem to be exempt over here in Ireland.


Jul 16, 2015 at 09:17 AM
LeeSimms
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Jury Service: UK


When you put your phone number right next to your logo on your top banner, it's going to get used. Just saying.


Jul 16, 2015 at 10:22 AM
ashton lamont
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Jury Service: UK


Its finished now

The money side of things was quite straight forward in the end. This is for the UK of course (and probably only for England and Wales not Scotland):

If you're required for over 4 hours in a day then you can get up to around £65 per day if you can prove you lost at least that. A lower amount applies for under 4 hours and a higher amount for long cases.

Everyone can claim a lunch allowance of just under £6 per day.

Everyone can claim travel expenses but private car mileage and parking must be pre-approved.

Being self-employed I had to prove that, which I did by submitting a copy of my last tax demand for July 2015. I also had to prove turnover, plus gross and net profit which I did by submitting a copy of my most recent available accounts - which are for 2013 as 2014 is not required before 31-01-2016. Net easily exceeded the maximum claimable per day. They ask what hours and days you work but I decided not to complicate the issue by elaborating on how wedding work, post processing, missing enquiries whilst in court etc, so it was mon-fri 9-5.

The court experience was farcical. Could hardly believe how bad the system can be for a defendant. And all sorts of legal threats to you the juror if you do this or don't do that. Couldn't help contrasting my experience with that of another trial which simultaneously was being screened on live TV taking place in - wait for it - AFGHANISTAN.

Pete



Aug 25, 2015 at 01:07 PM





FM Forums | Wedding Photographer | Join Upload & Sell

    
 

You are not logged in. Login or Register

Username       Or Reset password



This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.