In his third FPR update David Burrows looks at costs savings, case management & mediation
Few would disagree that the legal costs associated with most litigation are a blight on the finances of many of the parties involved. With family proceedings, the problem is at its most stark where, often, the parties’ means and the lawyers fees are part of the assets and liabilities over which much family litigation rages.
An argument can be advanced that the new Family Procedure Rules 2010 (FPR 2010) do little to assist with costs savings. The new rules can be seen—sometimes by omission, sometimes almost deliberately—as stoking up costs: many rules lack logic and will be expensive for the judges to clarify; disclosure rules are confused and aspects of rules as to expert evidence (eg, instruction of joint experts) are deliberately more expensive than under CPR 1998.
This article, the third in the present series, looks at two particular aspects of the scheme which are central to costs saving, and which are new to family proceedings: the Pt 18 procedure for interim hearings and
