Collect contact details
Until the tribunal hearing starts a good deal of your work will be getting in touch with people to ask them questions, send them documents or otherwise communicate with them.
Unfortunately, people do forget to charge their mobiles, don’t check their email or fail to put paper in their fax machines. This can be a serious problem if it happens at the wrong time.
It is therefore sensible to get into the habit of collecting as many different ways of contacting people as you can. Get their phone numbers, mobile numbers, email addresses, fax numbers, post addresses and anything else you can think of. If you later discover a new way of reaching them, make sure you write it down with the others.
But just because you can contact someone in a particular way, doesn’t mean you should. You might know the other side’s solicitor’s mobile number. This does not mean that it is appropriate to ring him in the middle of the night to discuss discovery. On the other hand, if some dreadful crisis occurs the evening before the hearing, he may appreciate the call.
If you are an adviser, you will find it helpful to establish a routine about where you collect contact details relevant to a particular case. Notes on the outside or the flap of a wallet file will often be convenient: then whoever it is you want to contact, you won’t have to rummage through the correspondence file to find their last letter to you. Or if you regularly use an electronic organiser, that may be the best place. The main thing is to do the same thing each time, so that you always know where to look.