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WHY USE US?

If you have a dispute and you cannot solve it by following the advice in the 'Disputes' menu, then you might have to go to court.

Or it might be a tribunal. For most purposes you can treat courts and tribunals as very similar and most of what follows in this menu is applicable to both.

Before you go to court it Is very important to:

  • - take proper advice, using our 'Subjects we can help with' and 'Services we offer' menus; and
  • - try to solve your dispute following the guidance in our 'disputes' menu.

Remember judges have the power to penalise people who do not do this before coming to court, and/or continue in similar vein during the progress of the case through the court system. A judge can, for example, make costs orders at any time during the case, payable right away, and irrespective of he eventual result of the case. So beware!

The 'court' menu describes how court proceedings work in general terms. Please remember though that every court case is unique, this is just a general guide.

Here is a rough overview of how virtually all court proceedings work:

  1. the parties exchange written statements of what they allege.
  2. they exchange details of the evidence they will use to prove their allegations.
  3. the court then hears all the evidence and decides the case.

There can then be appeals, and the court's decision might need to be enforced and so on.

This process usually takes months (and sometimes years), and in all that time the parties can decide to settle their differences and most do so. In fact less than one in ten cases that start at stage 1 ever make it through to stage 3, because they get settled beforehand.

Each case though is unique, and although it will follow this general pattern the precise way in which it does so will vary from case to case. The 'court' menu gives a little more information about how each stage tends to work.