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10 December 2025
Issue: 8143 / Categories: Legal News , Technology , Procedure & practice , Housing
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Vos MR calls for responses on online procedure rules

Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls, has asked lawyers to respond to a five-week consultation on ‘very straightforward’ online procedure rules

The Online Procedure Rules Committee consultation, launched last week and due to close on 15 January, covers the ‘basic general’ rules for online civil, family and tribunal proceedings, Sir Geoffrey said.

The online rules ‘will be far more simple and accessible than the current Civil Procedure Rules’, he said; for example, that parties have duties to ‘take all reasonable steps to settle their disputes’. View the draft rules here.

Sir Geoffrey, speaking at the Housing Law Practitioners’ Association conference last week, said the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, which will end ‘no fault evictions’ in May, ‘will undoubtedly create more contested possession cases than we have had hitherto’.

He said the ‘first iteration’ of the online platform for property and possession claims is expected in the late spring of 2026.

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NEWS
Criminal juries may be convicting—or acquitting—on a misunderstanding. Writing in NLJ this week Paul McKeown, Adrian Keane and Sally Stares of The City Law School and LSE report troubling survey findings on the meaning of ‘sure’
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has narrowly preserved a key weapon in its anti-corruption arsenal. In this week's NLJ, Jonathan Fisher KC of Red Lion Chambers examines Guralp Systems Ltd v SFO, in which the High Court ruled that a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) remained in force despite the company’s failure to disgorge £2m by the stated deadline
As the drip-feed of Epstein disclosures fuels ‘collateral damage’, the rush to cry misconduct in public office may be premature. Writing in NLJ this week, David Locke of Hill Dickinson warns that the offence is no catch-all for political embarrassment. It demands a ‘grave departure’ from proper standards, an ‘abuse of the public’s trust’ and conduct ‘sufficiently serious to warrant criminal punishment’
Employment law is shifting at the margins. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ this week, Ian Smith of Norwich Law School examines a Court of Appeal ruling confirming that volunteers are not a special legal species and may qualify as ‘workers’
Refusing ADR is risky—but not always fatal. Writing in NLJ this week, Masood Ahmed and Sanjay Dave Singh of the University of Leicester analyse Assensus Ltd v Wirsol Energy Ltd: despite repeated invitations to mediate, the defendant stood firm, made a £100,000 Part 36 offer and was ultimately ‘wholly vindicated’ at trial
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