Claims against solicitors top workload of Chancery Division masters

Chancery Division masters are spending more time on claims against solicitors than they are on business fraud cases, Lord Justice Briggs has found in his provisional report on the division.

Masters are spending 14 per cent of their time on professional negligence involving solicitors compared to 13 per cent on business fraud cases.

Claims against other professionals account for only 6 per cent of the masters' workload. This is made up of 3 per cent on claims against surveyors and estate agents, one per cent on claims against accountants and two per cent on all other negligence claims against professionals.

Chancery Division judges, however, spend most of their time on business fraud. These cases make up 23 per cent of their workload, followed by 22 per cent on pension schemes, 16 per cent on breach of contract, 10 per cent on breach of fiduciary duty and 9 per cent on landlord and tenant. Claims against solicitors account for 6 per cent.

The research, the first of its kind, was based on forms filled in by judges and masters during the three months from March to May 2013. The detailed breakdowns are based entirely on work in London, not at the regional trial centres.

Contentious probate dominates property disputes involving individuals, to the extent that almost half of all judge time, 45 per cent, is spent on this one category.

The other categories were much smaller. Variation of trusts took up the second biggest share of their workload, with 12 per cent, followed by orders for possession of land, with 10 per cent, and disputes relating to trust property, with 8 per cent.

In the report, Briggs LJ said the trial time for contentious probate was "uncomfortably large, but probably not atypical".

He said proposals in the report on financial dispute resolution (FDR) were "designed to bring this figure down significantly."

Briggs LJ recommended that FDR for individual property disputes should be extended to any regional trial centres where it was not already in place and to London.