Free to start · no sign-up · no card. Tell Chris what has happened and see whether we can help before you pay anything. One matter · one case folder · a full day of drafting. If money is tight, Help with Fees can remove the court fee entirely, and Citizens Advice is free — we will always tell you when you do not need us.
The form is free. The words are the hard part.
That sentence is the whole of it. Every court form in England and Wales can be downloaded for nothing, by anyone, in a couple of clicks. Nobody is kept out by the cost of the paper. What keeps people out is the second page, where it asks what you are applying for and why, and expects the answer in a shape the court recognises.
A court form is not a test of whether you are right. It is a test of whether you have said it the way the rules expect. Those are two completely different exams, and only one of them is on the syllabus.
The gap is procedural, not legal
Think of it as being handed the sheet music and told the concert is on Thursday. The notes are all there, free, in front of you. Reading them is another matter, and nobody hands you the lessons.
Or think of the two sides arriving at the same hearing. One side arrives with a drafted bundle, prepared by someone who does this every day and knows which document is served and which is filed. The other side arrives with a form off a website and a carrier bag. The reach is longer than the stretch, and the case may not have been the difference at all.
This is not a complaint about the people on the other side of that room. They are doing their job properly. It is an observation about the distance between the two chairs, and about how much of that distance is made of things that can simply be written down.
How common is it
Far more common than most people assume, and the government publishes the numbers every quarter.
- In the first three months of 2026, neither the applicant nor the respondent had legal representation in 49 per cent of private family law disposals. Both sides had a lawyer in 13 per cent.
- In the civil courts between April and June 2026, of 82,313 defended claims, 19 per cent had nobody represented on either side.
- In defended possession claims, where the subject is somebody’s home, that figure was 39 per cent.
A note on those figures, because it matters. The Ministry does not count litigants in person directly. It records whether a representative was entered on the file, and its own guidance says a blank field does not necessarily mean the person was representing themselves. We give that caveat every time we use the numbers.
What the Ministry does not publish, anywhere, for any court, in any year, is what happened to those people afterwards. Representation is counted. Outcomes are counted. The two have never been published together. We have written to the government statisticians asking for that one figure to exist, and you can read why we are asking.
As reported by the University
“Scott Snaith — winning the Inclusivity Prize became the catalyst for launching a second company. What began as a solution supporting self-represented litigants has now evolved into a separate venture serving professional organisations.”
University of Nottingham, Ingenuity Newsletter, Issue 1, 7 September 2026.
What the prize recognised
The University of Nottingham’s Ingenuity Impact programme celebrates ventures that create real social good. In 2026 its Inclusivity Prize went to eLitigant CIC, for a straightforward idea: that access to the courts should not depend on whether you can afford professional help at every single step.
We did not treat the award as a trophy. We put it into the guides, which are free to read and stay that way.
One founder who learned it the hard way
eLitigant exists because its founder, Scott Snaith, lived this problem. After more than two decades building businesses he found himself facing a legal and administrative fight without a solicitor he could justify paying to handle every step. So he learned the paperwork. Slowly. Badly, at first. He kept going until the documents met a professional standard.
“We got the forms wrong so many times, and kept going until they were right. We failed so the people who come to us don’t have to.”
That is the whole point. The hard-won knowledge of how to get a court document right, the wording, the structure and the rules that decide whether it is accepted, is now written down, so the next person does not have to fail their way to it.
What we actually offer
- The guides are free. More than eighty step-by-step walkthroughs, each to a single named official form, telling you what the form is for, what goes where, and which rules matter. No charge, no sign-up, no email required. Read every word and leave without telling us your name.
- Drafting with Chris is free, for as many drafts and revisions as you need. You describe what happened in ordinary sentences. Chris turns that into a document laid out the way the court expects, and asks you the questions the form is really asking. Nothing to pay to find out where you stand.
- Importing and exporting a finished document is an optional paid step, offered inside Chris. You see it clearly before you decide, and there is nothing to pay until you do. That step is what keeps the guides and the drafting open to the far greater number of people who never get that far. There is no subscription.
- The work stays yours. Chris prepares it. You check, sign, file — your control. We do not file anything for you and we never act as your agent.
Why a document you prepared properly is worth having
A tradesman turns up with the right tool for the job. He is no more skilled for owning it, but the work is cleaner and it takes less of the day. That is the honest version of what Chris is. It does not make your case stronger than it is. It stops the case being decided by something that had nothing to do with the merits.
And when you write it yourself, with help, you understand it. You can answer the question when the judge asks. That is worth more on the day than a document you did not write.
Built to stay open: a Community Interest Company
eLitigant CIC is a Community Interest Company, number 16566612, subject to the statutory asset lock. The mission is written into the constitution rather than being a promise on a page, which is why the founding line appears on every document we help produce: “Impartial justice, accessible to all.”
The model is exactly what it looks like. Funded by the users, for the people who need us most. The people who reach the end and export a document pay for the far greater number who read a guide, work out what to do, and never need us again.
How to start, today
If you are facing a form, a deadline or a court process and you do not know where to begin, you can start with Chris right now, or read the free guide to your form first. It takes minutes to begin and it costs nothing to find out where you stand. You can read more about who we are in our companion piece on the founder’s Ingenuity Lab Gold Membership.
eLitigant CIC is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. You check, sign and file.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Would you rather we drafted it for you?
Tell us what has happened and what you need. Every document is quoted case by case, on its size and the time it needs, and the price is agreed with you by email before any work starts. Nothing is charged until you say go.
Once agreed, it comes back to you within one working day (business documents usually within the hour). You read it, check every date and figure, sign it and file it: it stays your document throughout. No need to attach anything now — once we reply, you send your papers by email.
We use your details only to reply to this enquiry. eLitigant CIC is not a law firm and does not give legal advice. You remain the author of your documents.