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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

Birketts—trainee cohort

Birketts—trainee cohort

Firm welcomes new cohort of 29 trainee solicitors for 2025

Keoghs—four appointments

Keoghs—four appointments

Four partner hires expand legal expertise in Scotland and Northern Ireland

Brabners—Ben Lamb

Brabners—Ben Lamb

Real estate team in Yorkshire welcomes new partner

NEWS
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From oligarchs to cosmetic clinics, strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) target journalists, activists and ordinary citizens with intimidating legal tactics. Writing in NLJ this week, Sadie Whittam of Lancaster University explores the weaponisation of litigation to silence critics
Delays and dysfunction continue to mount in the county court, as revealed in a scathing Justice Committee report and under discussion this week by NLJ columnist Professor Dominic Regan of City Law School. Bulk claims—especially from private parking firms—are overwhelming the system, with 8,000 cases filed weekly
Writing in NLJ this week, Thomas Rothwell and Kavish Shah of Falcon Chambers unpack the surprise inclusion of a ban on upwards-only rent reviews in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve charts the turbulent progress of the Employment Rights Bill through the House of Lords, in this week's NLJ
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