A Page on the Web, published in the Solicitors Journal, February 1999.

The implementation of the new Civil Procedure Rules is the cause for much unease in firms and chambers across the land. Although the Woolf proposals have been discussed and digested for many months, with the in force date of 26 April looming practitioners are only now able to get their hands on the final Rules (dated 2 February).

The Queen’s printer’s hard copy of the Rules, including a monthly updating service, can be had (pending reprinting of course) from the Stationery Office (Tel 0345-023 474) for a princely £250 (quote ISBN 011 3801173), or you can find the Rules – and much useful commentary – on the web. Here’s some advice on where to go and what to expect.

From the horse’s mouth

The official version of the Rules is (largely) on the Lord Chancellor’s department site. Enter by the Civil matters page, then select CPR – final version, which shows the package on offer. This includes:

• the Lord Chancellor’s foreword
• the Civil Procedure Rules
• Practice Directions
• a Glossary
• the Schedules (ie surviving parts of the RSC/CCR)
• Pre-action Protocols
• a link to the Forms page on the Court Service site

While the Rules are complete and final, further Practice Directions and Protocols will be posted as they are published.

The site is guaranteed to put off all but the seasoned surfer. The only means of navigation and access is back and forth from the main contents lists. The information may be accessed in a number of different formats: as HTML (ie web) pages, as PDF documents or as Word documents. Of course, the only way immediately to browse the information is following the HTML links, which should have been used as the default. PDF is Adobe’s portable document format – an exact rendition of the print version. You need to have Adobe’s viewer software installed to view in this format and can download this from a link on the page. More useful if you want to download and reuse the information are the Word documents.

As well as being able to view or download individual Parts in one of these formats, you have the option to download the entire shooting match as ZIP files – being compressed batches requiring an ‘unzipping’ program to be installed on your computer (‘contact your IT adviser’!).

The Forms are available from the Court Service site only as PDF documents ‘for information purposes only’; final versions are promised soon, but there seems to be no firm commitment as to timing or completeness of the forms library.

So there you go: all the text, but not the way you want it (unless, like me, you like messing around with data).

Out with the hounds

Beagle (sic) is the first white knight to come to your rescue. The Beagle site publishes all the above materials, plus related materials including the recent Costs Practice Direction (and an Excel spreadsheet calculator therefor) and a slideshow.

You can navigate the site using the framed contents lists and links – an immediate plus over the LCD site. The search facility indexes the full text and enables you to find documents (ie Parts, Practice Directions, Protocols) using simple search terms or Boolean expressions.

If you want all this to mess around with in your office, you can download a 2Mb zip file.

Beagle’s identity cannot readily be ascertained: a classical music lover, living in Plymouth, Beagle is presumably a litigator, with an interest also in human rights (see the ECHR pages on the site). It’s to be hoped he/she keeps up the good work. It’s the best we’ve got at present.

Captured and digested

Butterworths have introduced a free Woolf Tracking Service, designed to provide all related information in the form of book extracts, articles, annotated text of the new rules and practice directions. To date there is little content, save the introduction to one of their books on the subject prepared by Freshfields. There are of course many pointers to Butterworth chargeable books and services.

One of the most succinct summaries of the new Rules is on the Simmons & Simmons site – a bit of a wait for the graphics on the page to load, but a useful document to print out and have to hand. The chambers at 2 Temple Gardens also includes a brief commentary on the Rules.

Barrister Laurie West Knights’ site provides an essential summary of the status of the materials available, an online and offline section on experts, a downloadable summary and a Conundrum Corner.

The hunt resumes

It is remarkably difficult to achieve a decent hitlist for sites mentioning the Rules using a standard search engine, for two reasons:

• All North American and most Commonwealth jurisdictions have rules entitled ‘Civil Procedure Rules’. Adding ‘Woolf’ to the search expression as a required word brings up the many sites with commentaries on the enquiry and proposals (eg the Warwick CTI site), but few if any on the Rules themselves.
• Although commentaries on the rules must be flying around the ether, many search engines won’t yet have captured and indexed them

Both these issues should resolve themselves in time – if time we had.

Featured links

www.lcd.gov.uk/
www.courtservice.gov.uk
www.beagle.org.uk
www.butterworths.co.uk
www.simmons-simmons.com
www.2templegardens.co.uk
www.LawOnLine.cc (West-Knights)
www.law.warwick.ac.uk