I often read my colleague, John Wilsons, columns in this paper and hope that you find them as interesting and thought provoking as I do. He keeps telling us all that too many law firms, in his view, see themselves as being in the money business, whereas we at Wilsons are in the justice business.

What is Justice? Perhaps you think it’s obvious it’s fairness, redress, equity, fair play, concepts like that; but a recent double page interview feature in the local paper however got me thinking that perhaps it is not that simple.

The interview was with the unfortunate victim of the attacker now dubbed the Lotto rapist. Mrs A through her spokesman has said: "I am not interested in the money. I just want justice." And the interview echoed this theme.

All right thinking individuals can only have sympathy for Mrs A. Yet there will be those who do not automatically agree that her case is about what they see as justice. They may take the view that justice was served when her attacker was jailed for life in May 1989.

I think this shows that justice is a very personal thing. As individuals we filter these concepts through our own values and experiences. Put simply one man could see justice, and another, injustice, both in the same situation.

This is perhaps why the age old response to the question ‘what is Justice?’ is "I don’t precisely know, but I know it when I see it" is as good an answer as any and perhaps much more perceptive that first thought.

At Wilsons we don’t make any assumptions about what justice is. We just listen intently to our client’s wishes and intentions and advise them on how the law and our experience gained as lawyers can assist them (or not as the case may be), in them pursuing what our clients often consider to be their own personal fight for justice.

Rogan Ashton