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M'learned friends reform themselves
00:00 22 Jun 1995
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For the construction industry, implementation of Lord Woolf's bold
legal reforms cannot come quickly enough.
As contracting bosses contemplate the millions of pounds spent each year trying and often failing to resolve site disputes, more than half of which goes to lawyers, they will wholeheartedly agree with the noble Lord's statement this week that the present system of civil justice is 'not equipped to meet the needs of ordinary citizens or business... it is too slow, too complicated and too expensive.'
A quick look at what has been going on since January in Court 13 of London's High Court, where Mowlem is claiming œ20 million in damages against Eagle Star and Phippen Randall & Parkes, confirms his point. The costs here could exceed œ20 million at the end of a six-month hearing that has taken more than five years to get to court. Over 100,000 documents, stored on CD-ROM, suggest the case could drag on for more than 18 months and the judge has already warned the barristers of costs spiralling even further out of control.
Under Woolf's fast-track proposals this would never happen. New procedures would ensure a 30-week upper limit for coming to court, and a case management conference shortly after the defence is received would examine likely costs and, more importantly, encourage out-of-court settlements through a raft of non-combative measures, including alternative dispute resolution.
Some construction lawyers are already hailing the proposals as more important to the industry than Latham. Of course, this may just be that they would rather not have Latham: if implemented in its entirety, 'Constructing the Team' could eventually eliminate so much of the adversarial argy-bargy that running to lawyers would be a rare and very last resort.
In truth, though, we are unlikely to get Latham in its entirety, and although some Latham is better than none, legal disputes will remain an inevitable, even if diminished, characteristic of contracting. Ironically, it has to be acknowledged that a simplified and cheaper form of justice may lead to more contractors pursuing that justice - so the courts may be even busier. But on the irrefutable basis that none should be denied access to the courts, Woolf is a welcome and essential step away from Dickensian legal stances towards a modern civil court.
As contracting bosses contemplate the millions of pounds spent each year trying and often failing to resolve site disputes, more than half of which goes to lawyers, they will wholeheartedly agree with the noble Lord's statement this week that the present system of civil justice is 'not equipped to meet the needs of ordinary citizens or business... it is too slow, too complicated and too expensive.'
A quick look at what has been going on since January in Court 13 of London's High Court, where Mowlem is claiming œ20 million in damages against Eagle Star and Phippen Randall & Parkes, confirms his point. The costs here could exceed œ20 million at the end of a six-month hearing that has taken more than five years to get to court. Over 100,000 documents, stored on CD-ROM, suggest the case could drag on for more than 18 months and the judge has already warned the barristers of costs spiralling even further out of control.
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Under Woolf's fast-track proposals this would never happen. New procedures would ensure a 30-week upper limit for coming to court, and a case management conference shortly after the defence is received would examine likely costs and, more importantly, encourage out-of-court settlements through a raft of non-combative measures, including alternative dispute resolution.
Some construction lawyers are already hailing the proposals as more important to the industry than Latham. Of course, this may just be that they would rather not have Latham: if implemented in its entirety, 'Constructing the Team' could eventually eliminate so much of the adversarial argy-bargy that running to lawyers would be a rare and very last resort.
In truth, though, we are unlikely to get Latham in its entirety, and although some Latham is better than none, legal disputes will remain an inevitable, even if diminished, characteristic of contracting. Ironically, it has to be acknowledged that a simplified and cheaper form of justice may lead to more contractors pursuing that justice - so the courts may be even busier. But on the irrefutable basis that none should be denied access to the courts, Woolf is a welcome and essential step away from Dickensian legal stances towards a modern civil court.
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