Litigation/Dispute Resolution

Delays in the county courts are finally on the decline but they still comfortably exceed a year for anything but the small claims track, according to new figures.

A ban on referral fees and an increase in the small claims limit are among ideas floated yesterday by the government to curb “unscrupulous” behaviour in housing disrepair cases.

The non-lawyer owner of a defunct law firm has been sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment for contempt after she failed to comply with a freezing order obtained by its previous owners.

A High Court master has explained how judicial mediation was able to resolve a dispute, where one of the sides was unable to afford a private mediation.

An increase in delays in the administrative justice system, caused partly by a huge rise in caseloads for certain tribunals, has had a “profound and often compounding” impact on users.

The Court of Appeal is to decide whether a party’s attempt to deceive a solicitor for the other side into disclosing client information is, on its own, an abuse of process.

The UK public’s awareness of class actions and litigation funding is continuing to rise, new research has found.

The Court of Appeal hearing the Mazur case will have to decide between statutory interpretation and “the contextual argument”, the solicitor bringing the appeal said last week.

The SRA needs to provide urgent advice on how artificial intelligence can be used in litigation in compliance with the Mazur ruling, the Law Society has said.

A leading provider of outsourced services and consultancy to the insurance industry has launched its own law firm to handle litigated disease, illness and abuse claims.