Civil Litigation

A new CJC working group has been set up to consider and review a series of discrete topics relating to civil litigation. The membership and terms of reference of the new working group are reproduced below.

Members:

Professor Rachael Mulheron – Queen Mary University of London (Chair)
Maura McIntosh (Deputy Chair) (Herbert Smith Freehills, commercial litigation specialist)
Helen Blundell (Legal Services Manager, Assn of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL))
Roger Clements (Member, Expert Witness Institute)
Nicola Cohen (Chief Executive, the Academy of Experts)
Simon Hughes QC (of Keating Chambers, representing the Bar)
His Honour Judge David Grant (Technology and Construction Court judge in Birmingham)
Michelle McPhee (Senior Counsel, Dispute Resolution, BP, London)
Guy Pendell (Partner and Solicitor Advocate, CMS Cameron McKenna LLP)
Alec Samuels (author and academic lawyer, University of Southampton)
Michael Stephens (arbitrator, and member of the CIArb)
Duncan Rutter (Forum of Insurance Lawyers (FOIL) representative)

Terms of reference:

  1. To consider and review a series of discrete topics relating to civil litigation and, in particular, those issues relating to the funding of claims and of furthering the CPR’s overriding objective of enabling the court to deal with cases justly and at proportionate cost.
  2. To appoint a small, core membership for the group, comprising the Chair, the Deputy Chair, and the CJC Secretariat, to be supplemented by additional expert members for the purposes of particular subject areas which are undertaken by the group during its work programme.
  3. To maintain a rolling work programme, with an emphasis on flexibility, to allow the group to respond to new topics as they emerge, but with a proposed initial focus on the following:
    • Hot‐tubbing of experts
    • The role which BTE insurance might play in improving access to justice
    • QOCS and private nuisance claims.
  4. To consider 4–5 topics consecutively, during a period of approximately 18 months, starting in April 2016, and reporting on each as work is concluded on that topic.
  5. To provide relevant information obtained by, and reports produced by, the group, for the assistance of the Ministry of Justice’s Post‐Implementation Review of the LASPO Act Part 2 reforms, which Review is due in early 2018.

May 2016