When people think about divorce they think about a difficult, acrimonious process and a painful division of assets, all too often with the attitude that if only the other person would be reasonable everything would be straightforward.

Privilege can entitle a party involved in court proceedings to withhold a document from their opponent or to deny access to regulators and enforcement agencies.

2020 has been a year like no other and undoubtedly the major change in this area of law has been the amendment to the Wills Act 1837 which had been unchanged legislation for approaching 200 years.

It is not unusual for land and property to be held within a trust for the benefit of family members (and is a particularly common arrangement for farming families). Predictably, this arrangement can enter choppy waters when one of the beneficiaries wants – or needs - to sell their share.

On 6 April 2021 Practice Direction 57AC (PD57AC) came into force which radically affects the way in which trial witness statements must be prepared in the Business and Property Courts (BPC).

We are often asked about whether the distress caused by negligent professionals can be compensated in damages. The answer is almost always ‘no’ and the basis for this has again been set out in a recent case. The judgment also provides some interesting points on case management and when it is too late to amend your claim.

The reported case of Scott -v- Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust [2014] Ew Misc B53 (CC) highlights the importance of solicitors being able to prove there is a valid retainer between them and their client. Failure to do so is likely to result in a solicitor being unable to recover their costs from their client.

Until recently, the Technology and Construction Court had made clear, in judgments such as ISG v Seevic and Galliford Try Building Limited v Estura Limited, that where there has been a “smash and grab” type adjudication in respect of an interim application for payment, there cannot be a subsequent adjudication to determine the merits of that payment application.

In case some readers think the answer to the above question is a matter of dry academic law with no practical relevance, some £10 million turned, at least in part, on the distinction between those phrases in the case of Anchor 2020 Ltd v Midas Construction Ltd.

The costs of litigation can be substantial and the potential costs exposure in the event the claim is lost can be the reason good claims are not pursued. A working example of how funding solutions can reduce a litigant's cost exposure is set out below.