The approved minutes and papers from the May 2017 Civil Procedure Rule Committee (CPRC) meeting were made publicly available on 21 June 2017. Continue reading
REUTERS | Ali Jarekji
June 22, 2017
CPRC Snippets: May 2017
REUTERS | Regis Duvignau
June 22, 2017
Fixed costs and offshoring
The Master of the Rolls, giving the Lord Slynn Memorial Lecture on 14 June 2017, had this to say about the effect of electronic filing and online courts: Continue reading
REUTERS | Ognen Teofilvovski
Victor Hugo, he of Les Misérables fame, once expressed the view that:
“There is only one thing stronger than all the armies of the world: and that is an idea whose time has come.”
REUTERS | Arben Celi
June 20, 2017
Damages-based agreements: another pitfall to note
Damages-based agreements (DBAs) were first introduced in 2013 but the take up has been very limited. As a result, it is very rare to find mention of a DBA in a law report but, as a recent decision has considered one, it is time to highlight another possible problem with DBAs. Continue reading
REUTERS | Toby Melville
The Law Society believes the legal sector of England and Wales underpins the UK economy. At the time of writing, a period of political uncertainty, together with Brexit negotiations becoming the priority of government, seem likely to scupper the Law Society’s vision for law and justice becoming a reality during the life of this Parliament. Continue reading
REUTERS | Jason Reed
It seems as if there has recently been a glut of upper court decisions on contractual interpretation. In Persimmon Homes Limited v Ove Arup & Partners Limited the principle of contra proferentem and the guidelines in Canada Steamship Lines Ltd v The King came under scrutiny. Continue reading
REUTERS | Navesh Chitrakar
June 15, 2017
Can a litigant in person delegate the service of a claim form and particulars of claim to an unregistered barrister?
Perhaps surprisingly, given that one would assume that service of a claim form and particulars of claim is a reserved legal activity under the Legal Services Act 2007 (LSA 2007), the answer to this question appears to be yes. Continue reading
REUTERS | Zoran Milich
June 9, 2017
Leaving us hanging: what dispute resolution practitioners can expect following the General Election 2017
Surprised? Why? Surely you should have seen something unexpected coming. After all, it was only a matter of months ago that the USA delivered a shock result: Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway wrongly declared that La La Land had won the Academy Award for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars. Now we must reflect in the Moonlight for what the UK General Election 2017 means for dispute resolution practitioners. In spite of the otherwise uncertain result, there are a number of things we can probably expect. Continue reading
REUTERS | Amir Cohen
You are faced with a claim for personal injuries and you make a Part 36 offer with a view to affording costs protection. It transpires that your Part 36 offer is successful and you look to recover your costs. By way of illustration: Continue reading
REUTERS | Toby Melville
June 8, 2017
Legal aid and CFAs: uncomfortable bedfellows? A view about Hyde v Milton Keynes Hospital NHS Trust
The legal maxim “hard cases make bad law” is attributed to US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes and has proved to be every bit as durable as its author (Holmes fought for the North in the American Civil War and retired from the bench 70 years later in 1932 aged 90!). In Hyde v Milton Keynes Hospital NHS Trust, Davis LJ referred to it when giving the judgment of the court: having commented that the NHS Trust’s case could “… scarcely appeal to any sense of the merits”, he declined to accept the outcome urged on him by its counsel, that to dismiss the NHS Trust’s appeal would be to make bad law simply because its case was “hard” (as in distinctly unattractive). Continue reading