If you are representing yourself without a solicitor or other type of regulated lawyer, you are a ‘litigant in person’ (‘LiP’). There may be a number of reasons that you are a LiP most commonly it is because of money. However, other people represent themselves for the challenge and to be blunt also an inflated sense of competency. No matter which category you fall into, the following are some of top tips for LiPs:
- Any time you contact the court, such as by email, you MUST include your opponent or their lawyer in by ‘cc. You would not like it if they were contacting the court without you knowing!
- When you are preparing witness statements do not forget that you yourself are a witness. It is not just other people who might support your case. Make sure you do a witness statement for yourself.
- Every formal document such as a particulars of claim, defence, defence to counterclaim, application, witness statements needs to be formatted in a way which makes it easy to navigate. That primarily means every paragraph must be numbered.
- Every one of those documents needs a statement of truth at the end of it. That statement of truth must be signed by you and worded in a specific format: https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part22/pd_part22
- Also please paginate your documents and bundles of documents which are sent to the court.
