In April 1999 Littleton Chambers launched Littleton Dispute Resolution Services. This mediation company was created in anticipation of the changes that were brought about by the Woolf report and the arrival of the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR). We expected a significant downturn in contested litigation and a corresponding reliance on alternative methods of resolving disputes, notably by mediation.
The dramatic change to new litigation brought by the CPR can be measured by known statistics. In the year before the rules came into force, about 25,000 writs were issued in the Queen’s Bench division of the High Court. Since the CPR, the rate of new claims is running at about 3,000 to 4,000 per year. This reduction in High Court litigation is explained by several different factors, but one major factor is that parties to disputes, encouraged by the CPR, have chosen to settle those disputes by alternative means.
