Subjects:

Practice & Procedure

Solicitors should not neglect small claims work... within a few years [it] could be more than 90% of all county court actions."" Suzanne Burn, Law Society Gazette. There is very little published for professionals on practice and procedure in small claims matters, at a time when the inexorable rise in the size of limits means that more and more actions will be handled by these relatively informal procedures.

Patricia Pearl is a District Judge in a busy county court, hearing actions across the full spectrum of work, including consumer law, debt collection, road traffic and cases related to personal injury, employment and landlord and tenant. Her book is practical and authoritative, its contents including: financial limits, cases excluded and choice of county court; commencing proceedings, defending proceedings and the pre-arbitration hearing; preparations for the hearing, lay representatives; the hearing - practice, evidence and presentation issues; challenging the result; precedents; enforcement; fees and terms.