What the subject covers
Dispute Resolution follows a civil claim from the letter before action to enforcement, under the Civil Procedure Rules, together with the alternatives to litigation — negotiation, mediation and arbitration. It sits in FLK1 Session 1.
More than any other subject on the specification, it is examined as a sequence: what happens next, by when, and with what consequence if it does not.
Before proceedings
- Analysing the claim: the cause of action, who to sue, whether the defendant is worth suing, and what the client actually wants.
- Limitation: the periods, when time starts to run, and when it stops. A question that hands you a date is usually a limitation question.
- Pre-action conduct: the Practice Direction and the protocols, what a letter of claim should contain, the time allowed to respond, and the sanctions for non-compliance.
- Alternative dispute resolution: when it is appropriate, what each method offers, and the costs risk of unreasonably refusing to engage.
Starting a claim: court, track and papers
Which court, which procedure, and which documents. The claim form and particulars of claim, service — the methods, the deemed dates and the periods for serving out of the jurisdiction — then the defendant’s options: acknowledgment of service, defence, counterclaim, admission, or nothing at all, which invites default judgment.
Allocation to track follows, driven by value and complexity, and it determines the case management the claim receives and the costs recoverable. The deadlines in this stage — to acknowledge, to defend, to reply — are the most examinable dates in the subject.
Interim applications
The applications a party can make before trial, the test for each, and the evidence needed:
- Default judgment when the defendant has not responded, and setting it aside.
- Summary judgment, where a claim or defence has no real prospect of success and there is no other compelling reason for trial.
- Strike out, for a statement of case disclosing no reasonable grounds or amounting to an abuse.
- Interim payments, security for costs, interim injunctions, and the conditions attaching to each.
- Relief from sanctions, and the structured approach the court takes to it.
The distinction the exam probes hardest is between summary judgment and strike out — different tests, different evidence, frequently both offered as options on the same facts.
Disclosure and evidence
The duty to disclose and its extent, the search required, privilege — legal advice privilege, litigation privilege, and without prejudice communications — and the consequences of inadvertent disclosure.
Then the evidence itself: witness statements and their form, hearsay and the notice requirements, expert evidence and the expert’s overriding duty to the court, and the court’s control over what evidence may be called at all.
Trial, costs and appeals
Trial preparation and the bundle, the order of proceedings at trial, and judgment. Then costs, which is where a large share of the marks sit: the general rule that costs follow the event, the court’s discretion, fixed recoverable costs, budgeting, the bases of assessment, and the automatic consequences of Part 36 offers.
Finally, appeals — permission, the grounds, and the route — and enforcement of a judgment once obtained: which method suits which asset.
Where the marks go
- Deadlines. Periods for acknowledging and defending, and the consequences of missing them. These are asked directly and marked objectively.
- May versus will. Several options describe things the court could do. The best answer is what the court will do on these facts, applied by the right test.
- Part 36 asymmetry. The consequences differ according to who made the offer and by how much it was beaten. Learn the two cases separately.
- Privilege. Whether a document is privileged, and what happens when a privileged document is sent to the other side by mistake — an ethics question as much as a procedural one.
Because the subject is a timetable, the most efficient revision is to draw one: the steps of a claim in order, with the deadlines against them, rebuilt from memory each week until it is automatic. Then test it with questions — FLK1 subjects maps the rest of the session, and the free warm-up sets include dispute resolution questions with the rule cited behind each option.