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NLJ this week: Personal service: time for review?

06 November 2020
Issue: 7909 / Categories: Legal News , Profession , Procedure & practice
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Twenty Essex barristers explore recent developments in the law on service―the means by which legal proceedings are commenced―and conclude that it’s time for a ‘wholescale review’, in this week’s NLJ

Paul Lowenstein QC and Andrew Dinsmore focus on the law on personal service within the jurisdiction. The courts have looked at many different scenarios, including digital service, service by alternative means in multi-defendant litigation and a case where the claimant’s agent tried to physically serve the claim form but was prevented by the defendant’s security team (the papers were left by the defendant’s car before the defendant was driven off in it).

Lowenstein and Dismore suggest that the law on service is one of the areas that would benefit from a Law Commission review, and ‘especially so given that the transition period for the UK’s exit from the EU is fast-approaching, at which time the UK will have to consider its treaty obligations in relation to service’.

They suggest some starting points for the Law Commission to study.

@TwentyEssex


MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

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Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
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