Background

The Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) set out the procedural code and requirements for dealing with court cases in England & Wales, including requirements for pre-litigation (pre-action protocols), issuing, and case management. Not all disputes involve contested facts; where a claim turns primarily on a question of law, the interpretation of a document, or where the parties broadly agree on the facts, the claim may proceed under the ‘Part 8’ procedure.

Part 8 proceedings refer to a streamlined process for initiating and resolving certain types of civil claims under the CPR. Unlike Part 7, which is designed for disputes involving substantial factual disagreement, Part 8 is typically used where there is little or no factual dispute and the court is asked to decide a specific issue—often legal or declaratory in nature. This procedure provides a more efficient and focused framework, generally relying on written evidence rather than extensive disclosure, witness testimony, or trial processes.

Overview

Part 8 proceedings may be used in various types of cases and for different reasons. As such this accelerator pack provides a generic base design for part 8 proceedings, with the exception of costs, whereby the accelerator has defined specialised child work types for raising or responding to costs specific part 8 proceedings.

The Part 8 Proceedings accelerator encompasses both ‘Raise’ (claimant) and ‘Respond’ (defendant) routes of litigation, with sub types for the respective sides. Where there are ‘common’ elements such as key dates, processes, etc. then the configuration is built at the Part 8 abstract work type level (to leverage the inheritance model and remove the need for duplication or unwanted variation).  

During the lifecycle of a Part 8 ligation there will be key ‘phases’ with slight variance on initial steps to raise or respond to the proceedings.

Example phase plan for raising part 8 proceedings (claimant):

Example phase plan for responding to part 8 proceedings (defendant):

The Part 8 proceedings accelerator aims to:

• Assist the case handler/case team in complying with court directions (instructions and deadlines)
• Drive efficiencies through streamlined ‘micro’ processes for common activities such as instructing experts or counsel
• Streamline data capture of litigation related information, to drive consistency in data capture and reporting, and enable intelligent workflow automation based on relevant variables such as track type or method of litigation
• Track the key dates associated with the litigation ensuring that deadlines are not missed

This accelerator is intended to be used as a child of appropriate matter work types and follow the below wider solution design: