Procedure & practice

"Both of these eminent works are needed more than ever before as trusted guides through the untamed jungle of criminal law"

The rule that failings of a party’s representatives will not generally be grounds for review is ‘not a blanket rule’, the Court of Appeal has held.

The Ministry of Justice has launched an Online Procedure Rule Committee (OPRC) to help guide judges, legal representatives and litigants through online court procedures. 

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has launched a new Online Procedure Rule Committee (OPRC) on 12 June 2023 in order to help guide judges, legal representatives and litigants through online court procedures. 

HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) has issued a release note as to the ability for solicitors and caseworkers to indicate that a party’s contact details (address, phone number or email address) are to be kept confidential when the case is being created in MyHMCTS. 

The third Family Procedure Rules 2010 (FPR 2010) Practice Direction update of 2023 has been issued, amending various Practice Directions including, inter alia, the revocation of FPR 2010, PD 36ZB (Pilot scheme: Procedure for using an online system to complete and file certain applications for an adoption order) and its replacement with a new Practice Direction, FPR 2010, PD 41E (Procedure for using an online system to complete and file certain applications for an adoption order). 

Costs budgeting, guideline hourly rates and the extension of fixed costs were among the topics covered in a recent batch of recommendations handed down by the Civil Justice Council (CJC). In this week’s NLJ, Julian Chamberlayne and Louise Morgan welcome the ‘various bespoke processes’ championed in the CJC’s final report, and set out their thinking on the reforms ahead.

The fixed costs rules are almost here. Published at the end of last month although not effective until 1 October, ‘palpable anxiety is already coursing through the legal profession,’ Professor Dominic Regan reports in this week’s NLJ. 

Ring the bells & sound the drums: the fixed costs rules are almost here. Dominic Regan provides the lowdown on what to expect & how to prepare

Nothing is ever certain in litigation: David Walbank KC assesses the Court of Appeal’s reversal of a first-instance decision on state immunity