..From memory out of thousands of medical negligence actions that are brought every year, less than 50 will end up in an actual trial. Nobody wants to go to trial. It’s the thing that people pay me to do most. You can probably, if you’re lucky bluff your way through pre-litigation correspondence but once court proceedings are issued you will be seriously compromised if you just try to “give it a go”. So many of my new instructions come from people who have tried to litigate and got into trouble with process or procedure, or sometimes from people who have had a claim issue against them and just buried their head in the sand. Litigants in person will necessarily find this part of the process the most difficult. That’s why it’s best to imagine and behave as if it is where your case will end up from the beginning. It’s the worst case scenario and it’s the one that everyone wants to avoid. Have in your mind, whenever you do anything during litigation that there is a judge at trial watching you at all times. I promise you, it will help you to make the right choices as you go through any kind of legal process. In any kind of process, it’s the people who play the long game they get the best results in the end. That’s all I’m suggesting. It has a handy fallout of also helping you to make the right decisions as you go along. I have experienced a number of occasions where either my opponent or myself, or rather, our clients will be penalised, for some conduct or other during correspondence and interactions. Correspondence that took place during the months or possibly years that lead up to the supposed big day in court. In order to help you make the right choices you really need to know what judges do and don’t like. I’ll post more on this later this week. Michael Shaw is a Direct Access Barrister who specialises in Medical Negligence.