Litigation/Dispute Resolution

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.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal yesterday chose an opt-in collective action over an opt-out to pursue a multi-billion pound claim over a cartel that controlled the cost of trucks over 14 years.

The “high number of instances” in which the Supreme Court has reversed its position on the law has created “the troubling appearance” of the politicisation of the judiciary”, MPs have warned.

Fast-track and multi-track civil cases are taking between five and 15 months to complete their first case and costs management conference, depending on the court, research has found.