Pre-Action Correspondence - Not Just a Box to be ticked or a Hoop to be jumped through.
Leeds Law Courts (c) 2005 Jane Lambert: all rights reserved Jane Lambert Until the Civil Procedure Rules ( "CPR" ) came into force in 1999 solicitors specializing in intellectual property law heralded litigation with an ultimatum called a letter before action . Written in haughty if not insulting terms and accompanied by a humiliating form of undertakings, they were intended to shock the recipient into submission. They rarely achieved the desired result. As often as not they were simply ignored. Occasionally, they were answered by a defiant response. As a result, a lot of actions were launched that could easily have been settled without recourse to litigation. As I wrote in Dispute Resolution all that was supposed to change with the introduction of Pre-Action Protocols and the Practice Direction-Pre-Action Conduct and Protocols : "The objective of the Practice Direction and the Pre-Action Protocols is to enable the parties to identify the ...