Confronting Costs Management – Issues Arising From Lord Justice Jackson's Harbour Lecture

On 13 May Lord Justice Jackson delivered a paper providing his views on how the new costs regime is working in practice and considered how the rules might be developed in light of experience.

After gathering views nationally from judges and practitioners, Jackson expressed his broad support for the principle of costs management and, despite the considerable teething trouble of the new regime, which has now been in force for two years, predicted that within ten years it will be accepted as an entirely normal principle. Jackson addressed several of the main criticisms levied at the reforms and provided his view on how these issues can be remedied.

Delay

A central criticism was that of the significant delays created by the backlog of case management hearings, which is clearly contrary to the aims of promoting access to justice at proportionate cost.