A petition has rallied changes to be made to making emails the default method of service for all civil proceedings.

The dispute resolution committee of Birmingham Law Society, which launched the petition, said the current rules were inefficient and costly, demanding them to end.

Chair Tobias Haynes, said the reliance on paper service was encouraging uncooperative and opportunistic behaviour from lawyers, resulting in further satellite litigation.

He suggested that it was time to change the restraints on the service by email as they were outdated.

Practice direction 6A of the Civil Procedure Rules states that, where a document is to be served by electronic means, the serving party must have written confirmation from the opposing side that it will be accepted. Lawyers must also ask the receiving party whether there are any limitations to the recipient’s agreement to accept emails.

Haynes said his committee proposed that email service should be considered valid if it is sent to the solicitor’s email address provided on the statement of case. Any email address for the firm as published by the Law Society or SRA – or which appears on a firm’s letterhead – should also be valid for sending documents. The amended rules, it is noted, could also be adapted to help litigants in person.

Haynes added: ‘The pandemic has, in our view, accelerated a shift towards paperless case management. As such, email communication is increasingly becoming the default.”

“Further, the courts have also moved to a paperless system in the form of CE filing, MCOL and with more on the horizon as envisaged by HMCTS’ modernisation programme. It seems peculiar that claims can be filed electronically, received back electronically but then have to be printed out to be served.”