2. See especially M. Zander, 'Why Lord Woolf's Proposed Reforms of Civil Litigation Should be Rejected' in Reform of Civil Procedure-Essays on Access to Justice (ed.A.A.S. Zuckerman and R. Cranston, Clarendon, 1995, pp.79-95).

3. The training programme is to consist of three stages. Stage 1 is a 24-hour seminar, one evening to the next afternoon. Stage 2 will be a 3-day event. Stage 3, for training of personnel at the local level, is still being planned.

4. In New South Wales, by contrast, the legal profession has broadly been hostile to the introduction of case management - see T. Matruglio and J.Baker, An Implementation Evaluation of Differential Case Management, Civil Justice Research Centre, 1995. p.22.

5. Report of the Committee on Personal Injuries Litigation, 1968, Cmnd.3691, pp.23-28.

6. Report of the Personal Injuries Litigation Procedure Working Party, 1979, Cmnd.7476.

7. See the study carried out for the Civil Justice Review by Inbucon, Studyof Personal Injury Litigation, January 1986.

8. For another example see the proposals for an elaborate pre-trial procedure in crown court cases proposed by my colleagues on the Runciman Royal commission on Criminal Justice (1993, Cm 2263 pp.101-09) and the sharply critical response in my Dissent (pp.223-33) in which I urged the much simpler approach of the Plea and Directions Hearing (PDH). In the event, the Government introduced PDHs and rejected the much more structured proposal of the Royal Commission.

9. J. Plotnikoff and R. Woolfson, From Committal to Trial: Delay at theCrown Court, March 1993.

10. An Australian study of case management showed that most cases were ready for trial within the time set for their respective tracks but where short timetables were set both the court and the parties had trouble in compliance. (An Implementation Evaluation of Differential Case Management, Sydney, Law Foundation of New South Wales, 1995), p.57 -referred to in the article by B.C. Caims, n.21 below at p.107.

11. Dick Greenslade, 'A Fresh Approach: Uniform Rules of Court' inZuckerman and Cranston, Reform of Civil Procedure: Essays on Accessto Justice (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995) at p.122. The figure came fromthe Solicitors' Indemnity Fund and was therefore based solely on claims ofwhich the insurers had knowledge, but there would be many cases where noclaim was made.

12. The Cantley Committee considered but rejected automatic striking out of actions 'as unduly burdensome and unfair op.cit., n.6 above, at p.8, para.22.

13. Report of the Committee on Personal Injuries Litigation, 1968, cmnd.369, pp.151-52, para.2.

14. The Times, July 18, 1996 C.A.

15. The Times, December 6, 1996, C.A. 16. The Times, December 27, 1996, C.A.. See also Hytec Information Systems Ltd v Coventry city council, The Times, December 31, 1996, C.A.

17. This point is made by Andrew Ritchie, of counsel, in 'Late service of witness statement', New Law Journal, March 14, 1997, pp.385-86. See also 'Failure to comply with court rule time limits and "unless" orders', Civil Justice Quarterly, 1997, P.85. ('It is not unfair to say that the Court of Appeal can be accused of -"blowing hot and cold" - ibid, p.89).

18. In the Mortgage Corporation Ltd case Millett L.J. said the Court of Appeal 'was acutely aware of the growing jurisprudence in relation to the failure to observe procedural requirements'.

19. A similar story is that of wasted costs orders. When such orders are made they may be the subject of a successful appeal see for instance the six appeals heard in Ridehalgh v. Horsefield [1994] 3 All E.R.848 (CA) every one of which was won by the appellant lawyers. First instance and appeal hearings over wasted costs orders tend to be quite long and quite expensive and sometimes very long and very expensive.

20. For an overview of this subject see I.R. Scott, 'Caseflow Management in the Trial Court' in Zuckerman and Cranston (eds.) op.cit. n.11 above at pp.1-8.

21. See B.C. Cairns, 'Lord Woolf's Report on Access to Justice : an Australian perspective', Civil Justice Quarterly, April 19 9 7, p.9 and references cited there. See also n.25 below.

22. It is also under active consideration in the Republic of Ireland where a committee under the chairmanship of Mrs Justice Denham is due to report shortly.

23. For a description of what case management has meant see William W. Schwarzer, 'Case Management in the Federal Courts', Civil Justice Quarterly, 1996, p.141. Judge Schwarzer has been one of the most influential figures in promoting case management.

24. For a report on the study - and the references to the quotes from the RAND study used here - see Michael Zander, 'How does judicial case management work?' New Law Journal, March 7, 1997, p.353. See also 'How does judicial case management work: a Postscript', ibid, April 11, 1997, p.539.

25. So, too, it seems is the news from Australia. Professor Ted Wright,Director of the New South Wales Justice Research Centre, recently Wrote: 'The caseflow management programs implemented around Australia seemed to have a significant impact on delays, but there are now signs that this may be because their implementation was generally preceded by or accompanied by massive onslaughts on large pending caseloads. Some of the earlier experiments, such as the New South Wales Supreme Court's Differential Case Management project are being declared failures.' (Paper presented to the Bellagio Civil Justice Reform Conference, March 17-21, 1997.)

26. Thus the Evershed Committee in 1953 thought that the solution to theproblems of civil litigation lay in 'a robust summons for directions'. (Report of the Committee on Supreme Court Practice and Procedure, 1953, Cmnd.8878, para.226.) But the robust summons for directions did not materialise. The Cantley Committee gave its view of what happened: 'This approach has not been adopted; it has been found to be impracticable. Most summonses for directions are conducted by competent lawyers who are well able to look after their clients' interests; nearly all lead to orders which are fully agreed or more or less agreed. . . If the Court had been "robust" on those summonses each set of pleadings would have to be considered in full, the time allowed would have had to be extended and hearing dates would be considerably delayed.' (p.12, para.32)

27. Report of the Committee on Personal Injuries Litigation, 1968, Cmnd.369. The Committee proposed that judges should use their discretion to penalise in costs 'unreasonable conduct that has wasted time or money', such as unreasonable refusal to deal properly with medical reports. (paras.212-15)

28. Professor Ted Wright in his previously cited paper about Australia, n.25above, said: 'Justice Research Centre data on personal injuries litigation recently to hand suggest that caseflow management has not resulted in an increase in settlements or a reduction in the proportion of settlements which occur at a late stage of the litigation process.'

29. In 1996, 4,717 cases were set down for trial in the Queen's Bench Division and 4,369 were disposed of by trial. (House of Lords, Hansard, 19 March 1997, W.A. col.74.)

30. No precise figures are available. In 1990, the last year before the 1991 jurisdictional changes, there were an estimated 44,000 High Court personal injury cases commenced. (Calculated from Judicial Statistics, 1990, CM1573, Tables 3.1 and 3.2 - 12% of all claims.)

The total number of all cases set down for trial in 1990 was 10,882 but it is not known how many were personal injury actions. The official figures show that in 1990 there were an estimated 8,800 personal injury cases disposed of. 2,270 were settled at or near to the door of the court or after a consent order; 5,820 were settled without a court order, struck out or withdrawn before the hearing; and only 750 were determined after trial. (ibid, Table 3.5.)

31. The Parliamentary Answer on March 19, 1997 (n.29 above) stated, 'The number of defences entered is not collected centrally and to provide the information would incur a disproportionate cost.' There is therefore no way that anyone can know the number of cases affected by Lord Woolf's case management proposals - a fact which must somewhat sap confidence in official assessments of the costs of implementation of Woolf.

32. 'Lord Woolf's Access to Justice: Plus ca change...' Modern Law Review, November 1996, p.773.

33. M. Rosenberg, The Pre-trial Conference and Effective Justice, 1964, Columbia University Press, p.68.

See also the study of serious fraud cases done by Professor Michael Levi for the Runciman Royal Commission. In regard to pretrial reviews Levi said, 'None of the defence lawyers I interviewed argued that pre-trial reviews had any significant effect on the development of the case.' (The Investigation, Prosecution and Trial of Serious Fraud, Royal Commission on Criminal Justice Research Study No.14, 1993, p.105.)

See to the same general effect the Crown Court study. Judges in crown court cases were asked whether they thought the pre-trial review had saved much time and money at trial. Two-thirds (66%) said no; a quarter (24%) said a little, and 8% said a fair amount of time had been saved. Only 1% said a great deal of time had been saved. (M. Zander and P. Henderson, Crown Court Study, Royal Commission on Criminal Justice Research Study No.19, 1993, sect.2.8.9.)

34. Judicial Statistics, 1995, Table 4.14, p.42. In the period 1990-95 it fluctuated between a high of 81 weeks in 1990 and a low of 73 weeks in 1993.

35. The defendant has 28 days from date of service of the claim to lodge his defence. (Lord Woolf suggested that the parties should be allowed to extend this period but it seems that this has not been accepted by the LCD.) Then the court has to send the allocation questionnaire to both parties. Both sides have 14 days to return the questionnaire. The court must then make the allocation decision and serve the Notice of Allocation.

36. In 1990 and 1995, distribution of length of proceedings in county court personal injury cases from issue to trial was:

......under 6m........7-12m....13-24m....24-36m....37+m......No. of................%...........%.............%.............%.............%........cases

1990........10..........29............32............15............13.........5,160

1995........11..........32............31............16..............9.........7,665

It is noteworthy that the increased caseload resulting from the 1991 changes in jurisdiction has not lengthened delays; if anything, the position has marginally improved.

37. E. Allan Lind et al, 'In the Eye of the Beholder: Tort Litigants' Evaluations of their Experiences in the Civil Justice System', 24 Law & Society Review, 953 (1990).

38. See 'Are there any clothes for the Emperor to wear?' New Law Journal, 3 February 1995.

39. In New South Wales the original plan was that all cases appear before the court to receive tailored directions. The Law Society proposed that 'run of the mill' cases could receive standard directions without having to appear in court. The Differential Case Management scheme introduced in October 1992 was accordingly modified to allow solicitors to decide whether the case required individual case management or could receive standard directions. (See Matruglio and Baker, op.cit., n.4 above, at p. 17.)

40. A reform where the cure is almost certainly worse than the disease is the recently introduced rule requiring exchange of witness statements under RSC Ord.38,r.2A. The consequence has been not merely front-loading of costs on cases that would have settled anyway, but a significant increase in cost for cases that go to trial. The tendency of practitioners to devote considerable time to crafting witness statements was increased further by the Practice Direction [1995] 1 All E.R.385 making the witness statement that witness, evidence-in-chief. Lord Woolf proposes to deal with the matter by allowing the witness to vary his witness statement at trial, but this is unlikely to achieve much.

41. Based on the Interim Report, the Final Report and the LCD's implementation plans as at March 1997.