ABSTRACT
Lord Woolf was of the opinion that ‘The problem of cost is the most serious problem besetting our litigation system’.1 He believed that ‘the unaffordable cost of litigation constitutes a denial of access to justice’.2 In his exploration for the reasons for the excessive cost of litigating, Lord Woolf criticised traditional charging methods used by lawyers (by the hour for solicitors, and by the day for barristers) as having an inflationary effect on costs (as the more that is done, the more the lawyer is paid) and he urged the adoption of charging on a fixed fee basis instead whenever possible.3
