More thoughts about “Zander on Woolf” by Tony Allen
To respond to an article which revisits the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) critically and which does not deplore the growth of mediation is certainly a bit of a holiday (see “Zander on Woolf”: NLJ, 13 March 2009, p 367).
While the CPR may have aspired to save costs through simplifying and streamlining, they seem not to have done so. I am not, however, persuaded that this is because of the CPR, but perhaps despite the CPR, and because some aspects of the Woolf reforms remain insufficiently enforced.
The long view
The first impact made on litigation practitioners when the CPR were published in early 1999 (with Lord Irvine refusing to countenance delay) was of a penal code, littered with references to costs sanctions. As my former firm retreated to a nearby school library to gear up for the new regime, the fear that our urbane local district judges would at midnight on 26 April 1999 turn into ravening juridical werewolves intent on feasting on the flesh of uncompliant lawyers was vividly in our collective minds.
What
