Legal Practice

Preparing Statements of Agreed Facts and Statements of Issues to be Tried

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In the preparation of trials, the court orders parties, as a matter of course, to prepare a Statement of Agreed Facts (‘SAF’) and a Statement of Issues to be Tried (‘SIT’): see Order 34 rule 2(2)(j) and (k), Rules of Court 2012. There are good reasons for this. The purpose of these statements is two-fold. First, it is to encourage and facilitate the narrowing, outlining and identification of the disputed factual areas and legal issues …

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Preparing questions for examining witnesses beforehand

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From the beginning of my practice, whenever I prepared for a trial, which meant the examination of witnesses, I wrote down all my questions beforehand. Whether it was an examination-in-chief or a cross-examination, I wrote down every question for every permutation of answers I anticipated from a witness. Preparing questions for examination is a feat of imagination which requires creativity, empathy and anticipation. I like preparing early to allow opportunities for new or better ideas …

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What Administration Letters/Probates and Fara’id Orders Are For

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When a person dies, what remains, from a legal standpoint, is their estate and its beneficiaries (assuming he has them and they are alive). A corpse has no legal personality. An estate comprises all the assets owned and liabilities owed by the deceased. Assets ordinarily comprise things like immovable assets (land), moveable assets (vehicle, guitar, clothes, etc.), shares, bank accounts, rent, legal rights to something, and anything of value really. Liabilities are debts like credit …

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‘Can he sue me even if he has no case against me?’

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I am called upon to advise about this scenario or something like it every once in a while: X never met Y before. They do not know each other. Or they knew each other or about each other, but never had any commercial or personal dealings with each other before, directly or indirectly. There is no relationship between them in whatever shape or form. Zero. Nada. One day, X sues Y for a tort of …

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Part A, B and C of the Court Common Bundles for Trial

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In preparation for the court, the lawyers for the respective parties will agree upon a Common Bundle of Documents (CBD). It is supposed to contain all the documents that the litigants will submit to the court in support of their respective cases. There are two dimensions to each document in the CBD. The first is the authenticity of a document. This relates to the existence of that document: Did it really exist at the time? …

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