In a series of addresses this year, the Master of the Rolls, Sir Geoffrey Vos, has been not so much thinking outside the box, but ripping up the concept of boxes altogether. In speeches at the Society of Computers and Law in March, the London International Disputes Week in May, and most recently in the Roebuck Lecture at the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators on 8 June, his message has been clear. He means to spearhead the biggest shake-up of the administration of civil justice in England and Wales since the introduction of the Civil Procedure Rules nearly 35 years ago. Indeed, by comparison, his reforms (which are already being implemented) will change the whole nature of civil litigation.
His central theme is that what he calls the ‘analogue’ approach to litigation, must be abandoned, in favour of ‘digitalised’ justice. He argues that the traditional methodology, involving initial heated lawyers’ correspondence, followed
