Yesterday, we had cause to look at and refer to the following from Practice Direction 23A – ‘When a hearing is to be conducted by telephone.’
Here’s a quick reminder to you all:
Practice Direction 23A, 6.2 – subject to paragraph 6.3 and unless the court orders otherwise, telephone conference hearings will be conducted for allocation hearings, listing hearings and, interim appications, CMCs and pre-trial reviews with a time estimate of no more than 1 hour.
Time estimates for applications are very important and should be as accurate as possible to take account of the various submissions, time for judgment and the issue of costs.
Practice Direction 23A, 6.4 – A request for a direction that a hearing should not be conducted by telephone must be made at least 7 days before the hearing and may be made by letter.
Time estimates really should be agreed if possible. However if not, it is for both parties to notify the Court if the time estimate put forward by either party is inaccurate so the Court can list the hearing taking into account its resources and other court users which is in accordance with the overriding objective.
S.176 Legal Services Act 2007 – A regulated person has a duty to comply with the regulatory arrangements of the regulator that applies to them.
We made reference to this when a solicitor sought to claim interest under the Senior Courts Act 1981 despite the claim not being in the High Court (the claim was in the County Court). The SRA Code of Conduct at Paragraph 2.4 states ‘You only make assertions or put forward statements, representations or submissions to the court or others which are properly arguable.’ The statement made by the solicitor would therefore potentially put the solicitor in breach of its regulator’s code of conduct and therefore in breach of his statutory duty.
As always, any questions or support with the above please email us at: [email protected] or phone 0151 230 8931.
