Continuing their analysis of how a litigator’s life has changed since the new rules of civil procedure were introduced, Tracey Stretton, Mark Surguy & Damian Murphy examine case law under the new regime
It has been referred to as “the phoney war”; the impact of the Jackson reforms must be coming but, even six months after the changes were implemented, there are few reported cases and little even in the way of anecdotal evidence. At a conference over a month after the Jackson reforms went live, a Queen’s Bench Master confirmed that neither he nor his fellow Masters had any “Jackson cases” (in the sense of costs management orders) on foot. At this stage it seems there are still more questions than answers about how cost management, proportionality and tailor-made disclosure will play out in practice.
In this vacuum, one way to try and tease out how the Jackson reforms may change the litigation landscape (with a focus on disclosure) is to look backwards at recent case law and create the