ABSTRACT
Lord Woolf’s Interim and Final Reports set out the main proposals for reform of the civil justice system and culminated in the Civil Procedure Act 1997 and the CPR 1998. They include:
• judicial case management;
• ADR should be encouraged and litigation should be a last resort;
• the adoption of three tiers – the small claims track, the fast track and the multi-track;
• the use of sanctions to encourage compliance with the case management timetable;
• the encouragement of settlement and negotiation by means of pre-action protocols and offers to settle;
• simplification in terminology, for example, replacement of ‘plaintiff’ with ‘claimant’;
• the use of experts by the court, rather than their appointment by one party.
