Civil law

Civil law is the law of everyday life: what happens between people who never signed a contract with each other, and between people whose lives are bound together whether or not they ever wrote anything down. Liability is what remains when something has already gone wrong and the question becomes who pays; a family matter is what remains when a relationship changes and the question becomes what follows. In both, the facts are usually fixed by the time a lawyer is called, and the outcome turns on evidence, timing and what was arranged in advance.

This is the law of harm and its consequences, and of the personal relationships and status the courts are asked to settle:

• the rules on fault, and on the liability that attaches without it;
• the rules on causation — proving that the loss followed from the act and not from something else;
• the rules on quantifying damage, including personal injury and loss that has not yet been suffered;
• the rules on liability for the acts of employees, subcontractors and things in your keeping;
• the rules on how insurance responds, what an insurer may refuse, and where cover stops;
• the rules on limitation — the periods within which a claim must be brought or is lost;
• the rules on marriage, partnership, separation and the division of a shared estate;
• the rules on parental authority, maintenance and the protection of vulnerable adults;
• the rules on evidence, expert findings and the procedure before the civil courts.

Our lawyers can support you in all these areas of law.