51st Update to the CPR - 1

The 51st Update to the Civil Procedure Rules introduces changes in a number of costs areas. The changes come into force on 6 April 2010.

The rules take a massive leap into the 21st Century.

E-mails out can now be treated in the same way as letters out for the purpose of bill drafting and costs recovery.    

CPD 43.3(h) is amended so that when requesting a hearing date the solicitor should also give, in addition to a fax number, an "e-mail address where available".  

Whoa!  Slow down with the technical mumbo-jumbo egg-heads.  What's this so-called "fax" meant to be?

If you think the rules committee has gone technology mad, you can breath a sigh of relief that CPD 35.6 appears to remain unaltered:

(1) This paragraph applies in cases in which Points of Dispute are capable of being copied onto a computer disk.

(2) If, within 14 days of the receipt of the Points of Dispute, the receiving party requests a disk copy of them, the paying party must supply him with a copy free of charge not more than 7 days after the date on which he received the request.

So you can still send the receiving party your Points of Dispute on an 8-inch floppy disk in a format that was only briefly used by the KGB in the early 1980s and still fully comply with the rules.  Not that anybody who works in the legal costs world is that petty.