Judges expect you to try to settle the case before going to Court and can penalise you in a number of ways including costs (financially) if you do not. What you do is send a Letter Before Action, which is addressed to the potential Defendant. It tells him who you are the summary of the facts upon which you rely and what you want from him e.g. compensation. You should attach letters and documents upon which you rely such as an estimate for putting defective work right and give him 7 or often best 14 days to respond. After that…
An excellent article by District Judge Ayers in the Solicitors Journal 2 December 2014 (www.solicitorsjournal.com) will help with preparing bundles. Read what the judge says. It is not rocket science but pure common sense. Supposing that you were a judge and asked to read a set of documents before or at a hearing. Would you like it if the bundle sprang apart because it was too full? It would intensely irritate you, especially if it fell on the floor. Try to avoid staples, but if you must use them in the corner not elsewhere and not twice. Colour photographs need…
Legal aid is being phased out for many areas of law including family and civil This is well advanced according to a report from the National Audit Office and many litigants now have to manage without a solicitor on the record, and become a litigant in person. Help is at hand from fixed fee lawyers who are brought in as required for specific areas and tasks. This team approach is cost-effective and can even be fun.
The US government has now begun the process of implementing the treaty into domestic law. This bears close reading, and is essential to legal advice if you are want to enforce maintenance for children in the USA, or are involved in enforcing USA court orders in the UK. We would be interested in your comments, please leave them by clicking on the title to this blog above.
This is the highest Court in the land and was previously the House of Lords. It deals with the big landmark divorce cases such a White v White and Miller v MacFarlane. If you Google those cases, you will see that in the average family with a house and regular incomes the judge is not going to be interested in who worked harder or put more money or effort into the marriage. He will just say 50/50. In the larger money cases however, these factors come into play. The judge aims to split 50/50, but often there…
Housing the family in two homes instead of one with the same income, is always going to mean belt tightening. Even with additional state benefits, not payable when together, both parties will have to get used to the idea of a lower standard of living. If there is enough money to go round a 50/50 split is great, and you go your separate ways but in practice this is rarely achievable. The case of Mesher v Mesher provided one solution. The judge orders the house or flat to be transferred to the person living in it, and subject to an…
Unless there is violence you will have to attend a Mediation and Information Assessment Meeting (MIAM) before filing a financial claim. Mediation is not for anybody and many couples succeed in settling matters literally across the kitchen table, with a pot of coffee or a bottle of wine. Because it is a family matter the Judge has to “rubber stamp” the settlement even though you are both adults, but if the settlement is halfway reasonable to either side that should be a formality and the whole thing can be achieved within three months for under £1,000. It is…
Your lawyer is not your friend. The American lawyers say, ‘If you want a friend buy a dog’ which is slightly harsh, but the point should be taken. It may be “Dear Rodney” and “Dear Peter or Jane”, but he is your lawyer not your friend. He can do more than your friends can to help you in tricky legal situations. A good lawyer will always give support, not by hand holding. It is done by clearly explaining the problems and the process and the proposed solutions in clear English. A good lawyer will explain costs, strategies and risks. That…
Contract disputes are relatively common and, when a case comes to court, one of the first things the court has to do is to try to work out what the parties to the contract presumed they were agreeing given the background to it (the ‘factual matrix’). In a recently reported dispute, the High Court was called upon to rule on the meaning of a contract between two IT companies which were developing products for the gambling industry. They had agreed heads of agreement and those were followed by a contract which contained an ‘entire agreement’ clause. This stipulated that nothing…
A High Court case which dealt with a longstanding uncertainty on the validity of ‘e-signatures’ in certain types of agreements was decided recently. The case involved a professional musician who used a very valuable viola as collateral for loans and also for an advance made by a pawnbroker. The viola was eventually sold for £230,000 and the dispute arose because the proceeds of sale were claimed in part by two different claimants, both of whom had advanced sums of money based on the viola being the security for the loan. One key issue was the validity of an electronic signature…
