On the other side of the Atlantic, and seven days journey away by steamship, the last Confederate states have re-joined the Union. Memories of the American Civil War are still fresh in every mind. We live in a world that the Victorians could not have imagined, yet it was only in 1999 that the English system has again received an overhaul as fundamental as that of the 1870s. It's time for an overview of the new litigation landscape in England. First, from the perspective of how the new procedural rules are designed to guide businesses toward settlement rather than litigation and then looking at the options available to businesses for creative dispute resolution through ADR and arbitration.
Litigation is the traditional way of resolving commercial disputes.
They codify litigation practice and sweep away more than 100 years of case law. The reforms were prompted by perceived public dissatisfaction with the delay, expense, complexity and uncertainty of pursuing cases through the civil courts. Accordingly, the new rules are designed to streamline the litigation procedure and to give the court both the power and duty to be flexible. In applying them, the court must always be guided by the overriding objective of dealing with cases justly. For English litigation lawyers, this signals a major cultural change.