I don’t know about you, but reviews of litigation procedure and costs just don’t get my heart pumping like they used to. More than 10 years after the Woolf reforms largely failed to achieve the aims of faster dispute resolution and more proportionate costs (it did rather better on the access to justice front), it’s hard to have much confidence in a solution for what ails civil litigation emanating from within the legal profession.
Still, if you are going to get engaged in this topic, the much-lauded report from Lord Justice Jackson is very much the dope with the scope. And it’s not hard to see why. Much of Jackson’s recommendations and analysis are hard to fault. The thrust of the 557-page document is that the system has in some areas become excessively tilted in claimants’ favour. This, Jackson contends, has led to abuse in certain cases, questionable behaviour from third parties such as claims handlers and has even called into doubt access to justice for defendants.
