Our staff are now all home based for the foreseeable future. Where they need to pop into the office, this is scheduled to make sure that there is no one else around. We’ve also invested a bit in our technology infrastructure to support a seamless remote working experience. In all honesty, we should have done this years ago- everyone seems to love working this way.

We’ve provided all of the usual PPE for our staff to use in the office and whilst out effectiving service. 

We’ve limited our office resourcing to make sure that we’re mitigating the risk associated with close proximity working. This has led to the temporary shut down of the Live Chat channel (which requires a member of staff in the office to deal with). 

We’ll be reviewing the situation every month or in the event that there are major changes to the current HM Government guidance.

We’ve cancelled all no essential client contact.

Whilst we didn’t do an awful lot of client contact prior to the pandemic, we did used to pop by our client offices to collect documents etc. 

Fortunately for us, most of our clients are in the same boat, so we’ve agreed now only to accept instructions via email and, where original documents are required to be served and collection from an office is unavoidable, we take steps (PPE etc) to make sure that the risk is mitigated.

We’re also using our home addresses to receive documents where documents are being posted out. 

As we are involved in the administration of justice, we are key workers. We still have to deal with members of the public.

We’ve identified this as one of the biggest risks as much of our work relies on getting into pretty close proximity to members of the public in order to validly effect service. 

So, we need to make sure that every instruction is carefully considered so that we don’t put members of the public at risk. This involves an assessment of each instruction and a fair bit of desk research for every case to manage exposure. Where appropriate, we’ll make contact with the subject via telephone and make arrangements to effect service in a controlled manner, being mindful of social distancing.

We will not be entering into private residences to effect service, even with PPE. Where this involves a potential compromise to our ability to effect personal service, we’ll take instructions from the client as to how to proceed.