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The insider: 5 September 2025

05 September 2025 / Dominic Regan
Issue: 8129 / Categories: Opinion , Consumer , Profession , Financial services litigation , Transport
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Dominic Regan reports on traffic jams in the county court, delays across the board & the headline action of 2026

The Justice Committee report on ‘Work of the County Court’, published at the end of July, did not pull any punches. ‘Dire’ and ‘dysfunctional’—and that was only page one! The inherent tendency to proceed in the High Court is utterly justifiable. The lower court is ‘chronically underfunded’—a condition I cannot see changing this decade.

Justice denied?

Delays are getting longer too. One fascinating anonymous submission of evidence appended to the Justice Committee’s report pointed out that claims brought by private parking companies swamp the court, with bulk litigation firms issuing approximately 8,000 claims a week, every week. Might the burden be alleviated by redirecting parking disputes to a traffic tribunal? A claimant on the current rules could secure a default judgment at a cost of £35, while a hapless defendant needs to lay out ten times as much to get a judgment set aside. This anomaly was

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Mourant—Stephen Alexander

Mourant—Stephen Alexander

Jersey litigation lead appointed to global STEP Council

mfg Solicitors—nine trainees

mfg Solicitors—nine trainees

Firm invests in future talent with new training cohort

360 Law Group—Anthony Gahan

360 Law Group—Anthony Gahan

Investment banking veteran appointed as chairman to drive global growth

NEWS
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
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
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
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
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
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