'Think very carefully' before calling court, lawyers warned

Lawyers have been urged to be selective about calling a major court building struggling from staff cuts. His Honour Nigel Bird, the designated civil judge at the Manchester Civil Justice Centre, has revealed that 'recent staff reductions' are increasing pressure on court staff.

In a message in the weekly mailshot from Manchester Law Society, the judge said it would be helpful if court users could make adjustments to how they interact with the court in order to relieve the burden.

‘Could I ask that users please think very carefully before ringing the court with general enquiries?’ said the judge. ‘Calls on subjects such as "will the judge be robing?" and "who will be hearing the case?" are time consuming and almost always unnecessary. A reminder that, as regards the latter, the information is always available on the Courtserve website.’

The judge also said retrospective help with fees applications take up a lot of court time and ‘seem often to be unnecessary’. This happens when a fee is paid to the court and then an application is made for a refund shortly thereafter.

‘If at all possible, please apply for [help with fees] prospectively,’ urged the judge. ‘Pressure on staff time means that going forward retrospective applications for HWF are unlikely to be prioritised over, more pressing, work, which will of course result in delays to litigants, however regrettable that may be.’

He added a reminder to lawyers that, when seeking approval of a settlement, compromise or payment on behalf of a child or protected party, the court needs the original form signed by the litigation friend and not a copy. The original birth certificate of a child must be made available to the court so the judge can certify if the name and date of birth is correct, and if a hearing is remote then a separate PDF of the birth certificate will be needed.

‘If the relevant form is not fully completed or the birth certificate is not available, the hearing may need to be vacated or adjourned,’ added the judge.

The Gazette has contacted the Ministry of Justice to clarify what staff reductions have been made at Manchester. 

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