Seamus Smyth outlines the difficulty of envisaging future trends in litigation
We’ve already seen an increasing obligation to “price” work in advance; the agglomeration of practices into bigger law firms on cost grounds with the inevitable concentration in larger centres; and—courtesy of instant communications—because we can respond immediately, a growing belief that we must respond immediately, with all the dangers inherent in doing so.
The fundamental issues, though, revolve around the cost of litigation and access to justice. Costs appear to be increasing rapidly in absolute terms and in relation to amounts at stake. Consequently, access to justice is being reduced: where the costs and risk of adverse costs deter litigants from properly making or defending claims they are being failed by the state.
The state provides a dispute resolution system. Our system works well—cost aside —producing good results generally and is respected worldwide. For disputes with large amounts at stake costs are less of a problem but for most cases, where value ranges from small claims to those worth tens (even low hundreds) of thousands the system is seen by many as prohibitively expensive. Successful
