Oct 5, 2024
Long awaited changes to the Civil Procedure Rules came into force on 1 October 2024, confirming the English and Welsh civil courts’ power to order parties to engage in alternative dispute resolution (ADR) including mediation. The changes are intended to give...
Sep 14, 2024
When I am not mediating I spend some time working as a qualified legal representative. This is an interesting and fulfilling role in family proceedings or indeed a civil case in which domestic abuse is alleged. In these circumstances there is a prohibition against the...
Sep 7, 2024
The old adage that an English person’s home is his/her castle has never rung so true. I have been struck by the number of boundary disputes hitting the headlines recently. The reports often focus on the financially ruinous nature of such disputes rather than how they...
Aug 31, 2024
No one knows how the Gallagher brothers have managed to bury the hatchet but their story of reconciliation sends a message of hope to their people who are estranged from their families or in a dispute with family members. Whether they used the services of a formal...
Aug 25, 2024
One of the fastest growing areas of dispute is inheritance claims or will disputes. Unfortunately these often arise in families when a loved one passes away and beneficiaries feel that they haven’t received their fair share. The case of Rita Rea is an example. She was...
Jul 12, 2024
There is currently a group claim proceeding through the Courts in relation to diesel emissions. The Court recently had to look at the costs budgets. The costs being incurred were detailed in the judgment published publicly. The Courts will generally try to limit the...
Jun 4, 2024
The Role of Mediation in Dispute Resolution Disputes occur in everyone’s lives which is proven by the fact that around 17,000 mediations take place in England and Wales each year as reported by the 2023 Tenth Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) Mediation...
Jun 3, 2024
In the recent case of Conway v Conway & Anor (Rev1) [2024] EW Misc 19 (CC) (31 May 2024)URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/Misc/2024/19.html the Claimant had a proprietary estoppel claim. He alleged that when he sold a property he had an option to buy it...
May 14, 2024
The MOJ is consulting on changing the civil procedure rules to make it a requirement of the rules to encourage ADR and to give judges the express power to stay cases for ADR and order parties to use alternative dispute resolution. The idea is to reflect the decision...
May 2, 2024
it has long been the case that ignoring a mediation proposal is unreasonable, not just actually refusing to mediate. The two approaches are the same. The Court has, since the cases of Halsey v Milton Keynes [2004] EWCA Civ 586 and PGF v OMFS [2013] EWCA Civ 1288 been...
