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28 February 2025 / Stephen Gold
Issue: 8106 / Categories: Features , Procedure & practice , Civil way , CPR
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Civil way: 28 February 2025

Latest CPR changes; Montreal Convention limits up; right to Manage reforms; mediation vouchers; your President guides x 3.

REFRESHING THE CPR

I am worried. Are members of the Civil Procedure Rule Committee receiving sufficient sustenance? According to its recently published annual report for 2023–24, the Ministry of Justice provides them with refreshments when meetings are held in person but in lieu of them making a subsistence claim. There were seven in-person meetings for the report year and the cost of refreshments came to £824, which averaged out at around £118 a meeting. That would allow, say, £9 per head. However, my suspicion is that non-member attendees, principally civil servants, may also have been tucking in, which would reduce the allowance to £4 per head. If I can get into the open meeting scheduled for May 2025, I will report back on who is scoffing what. After all, this is the age of transparency, and information on judicial eating habits should be available to the public. Too much processed food could lead

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Switalskis—Naila Arif, Harriet Findlay & Ellie Thompson

Switalskis—Naila Arif, Harriet Findlay & Ellie Thompson

Firm awards training contracts to paralegals through internal programme

Ward Hadaway—Matthew Morton

Ward Hadaway—Matthew Morton

Private client disputes specialist joins commercial litigation team

Thomson Hayton Winkley—Nina Hood

Thomson Hayton Winkley—Nina Hood

Cumbria firm appoints new head of residential property

NEWS
Freezing orders in divorce proceedings can unexpectedly ensnare third parties and disrupt businesses. In NLJ this week, Lucy James of Trowers & Hamlins explains how these orders—dubbed a ‘nuclear weapon’—preserve assets but can extend far beyond spouses to companies and business partners 
A Court of Appeal ruling has clarified that ‘rent’ must be monetary—excluding tenants paid in labour from statutory protection. In this week's NLJ, James Naylor explains Garraway v Phillips, where a tenant worked two days a week instead of paying rent
Three men wrongly imprisoned for a combined 77 years have been released—yet received ‘not a penny’ in compensation, exposing deep flaws in the justice system. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Jon Robins reports on Justin Plummer, Oliver Campbell and Peter Sullivan, whose convictions collapsed amid discredited forensics, ‘oppressive’ police interviews and unreliable ‘cell confessions’
A quiet month for employment cases still delivers key legal clarifications. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ, Ian Smith reports that whistleblowing protection remains intact even where disclosures are partly self-serving, provided the worker reasonably believes they serve the ‘public interest’ 
Family law must shift from conflict-driven litigation to child-centred problem-solving, according to a major new report. Writing in NLJ this week, Caroline Bowden of Anthony Gold outlines findings showing overwhelming support for reform, with 92% agreeing lawyers owe duties to children as well as clients
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