Litigation/Dispute Resolution

A rethought costs system that puts digitisation, vulnerable court users and a properly functioning civil justice system is the goal set out in a Civil Justice Council consultation.

A costs judge has ruled that a litigation friend did not give informed consent to deductions from a protected party’s damages simply by signing a conditional fee agreement.

Listed insolvency litigation funder Manolete saw its turnover and profit fall significantly in the last year due to Covid but is now seeing “strong growth in new case enquiries”.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority is set to make it easier for law firm staff to blow the whistle on their employers, as part of its work on SLAPPs – of which it is investigating more than 20.

The whole profession needs to address “out of control” legal costs, a major new report has concluded, but costs lawyers have a significant role to play in exerting downward pressure on them.

A small central London law firm has been awarded the £300,000 owed under a retainer which the client had claimed was not payable as the transaction it advised on did not go ahead.

Absolute privilege applies to communications within pre-action protocols and protects them from defamation claims, a deputy High Court master has ruled in the first such decision.

A Bradford law firm has failed in an application for an order to force a firm in London to reveal who provided it with web copy that was identical to its own.

City law firm Charles Russell Speechlys acted unreasonably in refusing to mediate a professional negligence claim that it ultimately lost, the High Court has ruled.

A High Court judge said yesterday that he has never come across a case where some of the work could not be delegated to a more junior fee-earner.

The court modernisation programme has become an “efficiency effort” and a second round of more transformational court reform is needed, the Social Market Foundation has warned.

The question of whether mediation should be mandatory will become moot in the digital justice system currently being built, the Master of the Rolls said last week.

A law firm being sued for more than £2m over a failure to advise properly has failed in its bid for summary judgment over several of the allegations made against it.

County court judges would benefit from “more authoritative guidance” from the higher courts on whether unqualified solicitor’s agents have rights of audience, a circuit judge has said.

The work of the new Online Procedure Rules Committee will help connect the whiplash portal and other pre-action regimes to the court system electronically, the deputy head of civil justice has said.