The case for radical change to the Civil Procedure Rules

May 5, 2026

By Chris Richards

Introduction

Sir Thomas More was a truly influential figure in the Tudor period. As well as being a lawyer, and a Judge, he was a philosopher, theologian, humanist, and author. Those reading this article might remember that some of the things that Sir Thomas More wrote, and did, rather annoyed Henry VIII, and (like so many others at the time) he ended his life with his head some distance away from the rest of his body.

The most important book written by Sir Thomas More is ‘Utopia’. Utopia, which was published in 1516, describes the religious, political and social arrangements of an imaginary country named Utopia. The word ‘Utopia’ is constructed from Greek words which effectively mean ‘nowhere’, and so he is making clear that this place is imaginary.

There are arguments about why Sir Thomas More wrote the book. He does not actually appear to have been trying to describe a perfect place (as the casual reader might have expected, given the modern meaning of the word ‘Utopia’).

But when he is describing the laws and the government of Utopia, he seems to be describing things as many of us might wish them to be:

“If a man aspire ambitiously to any office, he loseth it for certain. They live in loving intercourse with each other, the magistrates never behaving either insolently or cruelly to the people. They affect rather to be called fathers, and by really being such, well merit the appellation. The people pay them all marks of honour, the more freely because none are exacted from them. The prince himself hath no distinction either of garments or a crown; a sheaf of corn only is carried before him, and a wax-light before the high-priest.

They have few laws and such is their constitution, they require not many. They much condemn other countries, whose laws, with the commentaries on them, swell so many volumes; esteeming it unreasonable to oblige men to obey a body of laws so large and intricate, as not to be read and understood by every subject.

They have no lawyers among them. For they esteem them a class, whose profession it is to disguise matters, and to writhe the laws. Therefore they think it much better that every man should plead his own cause, and trust it to the judge, as elsewhere the client trusteth it to his counsellor. By this plan they avoid many delays, and find out the truth with more certainty. For after the parties have opened the merits of the cause without the artifices of lawyers, the judge examines the matter and supports the simplicity of those well-meaning persons whom otherwise the crafty would run down. And thus they avoid those evils which appear so remarkable in those countries which labour under a vast load of laws.

Every one of them is skilled in their law. It is a very short study, and the plainest meaning of which words are capable, is ever the sense of it. They argue thus. All laws are promulgated that every man may know his duty. Therefore the plainest construction of words is, what ought to be put upon them. A more refined exposition could not easily be comprehended, and would only make the laws useless to the greater part of mankind, especially to those who most need the guidance of them. It is the same thing, whether you make no law at all, or couch it in terms of which, without a quick apprehension and much study, men cannot find out the true meaning; for the generality of mankind are so dull and so busied in their avocations, that they have neither the leisure nor capacity requisite for such an inquiry.”

Certainly we can all support the idea that Judges should not behave cruelly to those appearing before them. And as for the suggestion that lawyers only exist to ‘writhe the laws’, and disguise the truth, I could not possibly comment.

But the most interesting part of this extract is the idea that the law can become so complicated that it ends up doing harm. There is a risk, the author tells us, that if the law becomes too complicated, people will not be able to understand it. The risk of the law not being understood is most acute for vulnerable people, who need the protection of the law the most. Everyone should be able to know what the law is. People should not be subject to laws which they do not know about, or do not understand.

There is a further risk, he tells us, that the law becoming too complex transfers power away from the public at large, and places it in the hands of lawyers. This book was being written around the time that there was controversy about whether the Bible, and church services, should be in English or Latin. If the law becomes too complicated for ordinary people to understand, lawyers might become more like a priesthood, babbling away to themselves in a language which others simply do not understand.

So – what does this have to do with the Civil Procedure Rules?

The history of the Civil Procedure Rules

The Civil Procedure Rules underpin all civil litigation in England and Wales.

The Civil Procedure Rules came about as part of an attempt at reform in the late 1990s. There was a feeling at the time that civil litigation had become too cumbersome, and too costly, and what was needed was a new set of rules which would help simplify the process.

Lord Woolf produced a report, titled ‘Access to Justice’, in 1996. The main recommendation in this report was “to produce a single, simpler procedural code to apply to civil litigation in the High Court and county courts”. The hope was that a new set of rules would “reduce… complexity and so makes the system more amenable to actual users and more acceptable to ordinary citizens, whether litigants or not”.

The Civil Procedure Rules were then formally introduced through the Civil Procedure Act 1997. The Civil Procedure Rules are overseen by the Civil Procedure Rule Committee, and are updated from time to time. There have been something like 193 updates so far.

The need for simplicity is supposed to be at the heart of the Civil Procedure Rules. Section 2(7) of the Civil Procedure Act 1997 makes it a binding statutory duty for the Civil Procedure Rule Committee to try and make the rules ‘simple and simply expressed’:

“The Civil Procedure Rule Committee must, when making Civil Procedure Rules, try to make rules which are both simple and simply expressed.”

The problem that has arisen

The problem, simply put, is that the Civil Procedure Rules are not simple, or simply expressed. The Civil Procedure Rules have become so overcomplicated that most people without a legal background are functionally unable to get to grips with them. That is a serious problem. Even for lawyers and Judges, the complexity being built into the Civil Procedure Rules significantly increases the chance that things will go wrong.

The concerns raised by the senior judiciary

It is not just lowly old me saying this. The excessive complexity of the Civil Procedure Rules has been a concern at the highest levels of the judiciary. See, for example, the paragraphs below, which came from an excellent and illuminating talk delivered by Lord Justice Haddon-Cave at Gresham College on 17 June 2021:

“As Lord Briggs observed in his Civil Courts Structure Review, an increasing proportion of court users are self-represented who are ‘gravely hampered’ by the complexity of civil procedure, which means that equality between wealthy litigants and the under-resourced is still a distant prospect.

In Barton v Wright Hassall LLP, the Supreme Court considered the plight of a litigant in person who had served his claim by email, which is only permissible under the Rules only if the other party has agreed to service by email. The Supreme Court decided that service without such prior notification was invalid and, therefore, was the claim. There is no special treatment for litigants in person. The need for non-Byzantine rules which ordinary people can reasonably understand and observe is even greater.

You may be interested to know that the Swiss Civil Procedure Code is only about 100 pages (i.e. under 2% of the length of our CPR). It’s like the Swiss Army penknife – compact but it can do a lot of stuff.

Some think that our monolithic White Book has become an embarrassment in a modern jurisdiction.”

The other evidence that there is a problem

How can I prove to you that there is a problem?

We can start with some Civil Procedure Rules which are particularly bad.

There is a link included below to Practice Direction 27B. Practice Direction 27B sets out how claims for personal injury compensation following road traffic accidents should be dealt with. There are literally tens of thousands of claims which are governed by these rules. It is a set of rules which is specifically designed, in theory, to be used by litigants in person:

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part27/practice-direction-27b-claims-under-the-pre-action-protocol-for-personal-injury-claims-below-the-small-claims-limit-in-road-traffic-accidents-court-procedure

You can see the problem just by eyeballing the text in the link. Imagine that you are a litigant in person who needs to use Practice Direction 27B to bring a claim. What you see is an enormous chunk of text, with needlessly complicated language, lots of technical terms (‘RTASC L’, ‘non-protocol vehicle costs’, ‘uplift applications’ etc.) and a thoroughly confusing structure. I think most litigants in person, seeing this, are simply going to run a mile.

But for lawyers and Judges, is it any better? We might have the intelligence and the experience, but what we often lack is time. Imagine a Judge looking after a short application hearing, lasting thirty minutes, where they have no separate reading time, and where there is some sort of disagreement about Practice Direction 27B. The Judge is going to need to skim read Practice Direction 27B in a few minutes and be capable of making the right decision about how it works. Will they be able to do that?

Practice Direction 27B is a particularly bad example. However, there are plenty of other rules which for a litigant in person may as well be in Swahili. Have a look at CPR 36, or CPR 45.

There is other evidence that there is a problem. We can look at the number of recent appellate decisions where the higher courts have been trying to make sense of the rules. Every time the appellate courts have had to get involved, there is huge delay, huge waste of money, and the danger that the appellate courts will not be able to actually fix the problem.

The classic example is Aldred v Cham [2019] EWCA Civ 1780. Those writing the rules governing costs in lower-value claims forgot, I suspect, to allow Claimants who struggle with English to recover the cost of translation. The Court of Appeal had to weigh in, and decided that the rules could not be bent to allow translation costs to be recovered. The Court of Appeal eventually had another look, in the case of Santiago v MIB [2023] EWCA Civ 838, and decided that the rules could be bent. However, the poor drafting of the rules meant that there were four years where Claimants who struggled with English, and who could not pay for translation out of pocket, were being needlessly faced with massive bills.

There is other evidence that something might be going wrong. We know that judicial morale is low. We also know that HMCTS are struggling to recruit civil Judges. There are certainly reasons for that – excessive workload, inadequate pay, lack of administrative support. However, I wonder whether another reason is that instead of Judges doing the job that they are paid to do, that is, using their judgment and experience to achieve fair outcomes, they are having to wade through a mass of procedural spaghetti with the ever-present danger of getting things wrong and being appealed. That cannot be fun.

The guiding principles to have in mind

The central thesis of this article is that there needs to be a radical simplification in the Civil Procedure Rules. But how can we do that?

I think a good place to start is to come up with a set of principles which should always be in mind for those who are drafting the rules.

Here is my attempt:

1. The rules should always be capable of being understood by a person of average intelligence and education (perhaps with limited assistance from a professional person – not necessarily a legal professional);
2. The rules must be as concise as possible;
3. The rules should be written in a consistent style (both language and formatting);
4. The rules should have a logical structure;
5. The rules for a particular topic should be in a single place, and should not be scattered across the Civil Procedure Rules as a whole;
6. The rules should make clear where actions must be taken, or where they may be taken;
7. The rules should always set out the consequences where mandatory requirements are not met;
8. The rules should avoid cross-referencing wherever possible (i.e. ‘this rule applies to all cases, except where rules X, Y and Z apply’);
9. Where an error is discovered in the rules, it should be amended immediately;
10. The rules should only be changed where absolutely necessary;
11. Where the rules are changed, the changes in the rules should affect all ongoing cases wherever possible, to make sure that there is a single set of rules being used;
12. The rules should be readily accessible to the general public, and the website where the rules are uploaded should be regularly updated.

The approach to simplification

I am generally allergic to the use of artificial intelligence. However, I had an interesting experience recently with ChatGPT. I asked ChatGPT to read CPR 36, and then read my rules included above, and then produce a simplified version of CPR 36. Here is what it came up with (with some light editing):

Part 36 – Offers to Settle (Simplified)

Part 36 allows parties to make offers to settle a claim or part of a claim.

Offers encourage early resolution without a trial.

Making a Part 36 Offer

1. Must be in writing.
2. Must state it is made under Part 36.
3. Must specify a time limit for acceptance (at least 21 days)
4. Must state whether the offer refers to the whole of the claim or part of the claim.

Accepting a Part 36 Offer

5. Offers have effect from the date when they are served.
6. Offers can be accepted until withdrawn or changed.
7. Acceptance must be in writing and served on the person making the offer.

Withdrawing or Changing a Part 36 Offer

8. The person making the offer can withdraw or change the offer before it is accepted, but they must give written notice.
9. Withdrawal or change takes effect when notice is served.

Consequences of Late Acceptance of a Part 36 offer

10. If an offer is accepted after the time limit, the court will decide what effect there is on costs.

Consequences of a Part 36 Offer being Beaten at Trial

11. If a Defendant beats their offer at trial, the Claimant must pay the Defendant’s costs from the end of the time limit for acceptance.
12. If a Claimant beats their offer at trial:
    1. The Defendant must pay the Claimant’s costs from the end of the time limit for acceptance;
    2. The Defendant must pay the Claimant an additional 10% on their damages.
13. The Court may disapply the above consequences if it believes they would be unjust.

Evidence and Court Use

14. A Part 36 offer cannot be disclosed to the court until the case is concluded or when the offer becomes relevant for costs.

That is pretty ugly stuff, but it is simple. The style is a little inconsistent, and some of the costs consequences of a Claimant beating an offer are not included, and neither do the rules deal very well with cases where there is more than one Defendant. The rules as drafted do need some work. However, the rules satisfy most of the requirements which I set out above, and the average litigant is going to have a much easier time understanding them.

Perhaps those writing the Civil Procedure Rules could do worse than let ChatGPT have a final look over their work.

Conclusions

I am going to end this article with a quote which I have shamelessly stolen from Lord Justice Haddon-Cave:

“The great Ernst Friedrich Schumacher said: ‘Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.’”

Perhaps, with some genius and some courage, we can move closer to the sort of system which Sir Thomas More was dreaming about all those years ago.

Chris Richards

Exchange Chambers

5 May 2026