The most important reform of English courts in over a century happened on 26-04-1999 with the introduction of a complete new set of Civil Procedure Rules covering the procedure of the High Court and the County Court. They are supposed to be simpler, particularly because they are written in plain English - although you have to beware the fact that every rule is supplemented by a Practice Direction. This means you cannot be sure what a rule says without looking both at the rule itself and at the accompanying Practice Direction. The CPR also aim to give the judges more control over proceedings rather than lawyers (who were felt to allow too much delay) and to encourage parties to settle their differences, preferably before litigation even starts. This seems to be working as there has been a big drop in the number and length of cases in the courts since the introduction of the CPR.

The courts are supplemented by a large number of specialist tribunals whose procedures tend to be less formal than that of the courts but which provide specialist knowledge in particular areas. Examples include the social security Appeals Tribunal, the Immigration Appeal Tribunal, the Rent Assessment Committee and the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal. They each have their own administration but most are regulated by the Council on Tribunals.

The Rent Assessment Panel provides members of the Rent Assessment Committee and the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal. They are administered by the Residential Property Tribunal Service which is funded by the government (through the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister).

Judges and tribunal lawyer members are appointed by the Lord Chancellor who heads the Department for Constitutional Affairs.

The law of England and Wales is based on judge-made common law, now overlaid by a huge quantity of statutes (Acts of Parliament) and statutory instruments (legislation which is secondary to statute but also has to be approved by Parliament). However statute has to be interpreted by a court. Therefore, the reports of the decisions of the higher courts are as important, if not more important. Interpretations of the law by the House of Lords, the Court of Appeal and the High Court are each binding on the courts at lower levels. Decisions of the County Court are not normally reported and are only "persuasive" and not binding on other County Courts. You can find some law reports on-line for free at the Court Service and House of Lords web-sites. There are also more comprehensive services for which you have to pay a substantial subscription. The best free source is Bailii (the British and Irish Legal Information Institute).

The legal system came into being as an alternative to more primitive means of dispute resolution. However, it is often now seen, particularly in the USA, as too adversarial, costly, unpredictable, rigid, over-professionalised, damaging to relationships and limited to narrow rights-based remedies rather than creative problem-solving.  Alternatives to going to law, collectively known as Alternative or Appropriate Dispute Resolution, or "ADR" for short, have therefore been developed.

The main form of ADR is mediation. In the UK.  There is more information about ADR on the DCA website.

Since 1950 the services of solicitors and barristers have been made available for those who could not afford them by Legal Aid (now known as public funding or Community Legal Service funding). Subject to a means test and a merits test for their particular case, individual clients were provided with advice and litigation services from any solicitor willing to take on the work. Increasing pressure on the legal aid budget over the previous decade was the excuse for  fundamental changes in the legal aid system brought in by Blair's Lord Chancellor (whose government department is now called the Department for Constitutional Affairs). The merits test has been tightened up and legally-aided services are only now available from solicitors with contracts granted by the Legal Services Commission (previously called the Legal Aid Board).

The European Influence