A litigant in person is an individual, company or organisation who makes a claim without legal representation from a solicitor or barrister.

More recently there have been important developments which should be taken into account before going down this route. One of the most fundamental changes is from the recent cases of Barton v Wright Hassall and Reynard v Fox. Both of these cases have shown that litigants in person (“LiP”) cannot be given “special dispensation” when interpreting the court rules and cannot expect “the law to bend to suit their circumstances”. There has, in the past, in some cases been some leniency for LiP’s as they were not legally trained and would not be expected to know the law.

A periodic tenancy is where the original fixed term has expired but the parties continue on the same basis, or…

In 2012 I joined the ranks of a working solicitor mum when my son was born.

At the time it crossed my mind whether I should consider becoming a stay at home mum. I didn’t think I had the patience or virtue to stay at home with my child ALL the time, and most importantly I had worked really hard to get where I was. If you add up the 3 years at university, 1 year legal practise course, 2 year training contract just to qualify, and then 7 years post qualification to become an associate it adds up. I actually enjoyed my job and didn’t want my identity to be defined by my offspring. I also wanted to demonstrate to my son (and now daughter) good work ethics.

There are various methods of challenging the validity of a Will, one of which is to show that undue influence had been exerted on the deceased.

This is by far the hardest method of setting aside a Will and that is reflected by the fact that there has only ever been 4 successful cases determined in the court.

There must have been ‘coercion’ rather than just ‘persuasion’, and that is a concept which most of my lay clients struggle with.

Last week we heard how Ms Fouladi was awarded over £100,000 for putting up with the noise from her upstairs…