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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2014
I am the fortieth person to have given the Lionel Cohen lecture since 1953 when Professor Arthur Goodhart gave the first lecture in this series. The lecture was founded by, and in the name of one of British Jewry's most distinguished figures and the list of Lionel Cohen lecturers is illustrious indeed. It is a great honour to have been asked to join their company. For me it has an additional pleasure — my late father, Dr. Walter Zander, was closely involved in the establishment of the lecture and in its development for its first eighteen years. From 1944 to 1971 my father was Secretary of the British Friends of the Hebrew University and the annual event of the Lionel Cohen lecture and the subsequent “report back” dinner at Lincoln's Inn was a part of his work which he always enjoyed and regarded as of importance. I obviously regret that he did not live long enough to see his eldest son honoured in this way.
1 For details see (1995) Civil J.Q. 231 Google Scholar.
2 For details see (1996) Civil J.Q. 273 Google Scholar.
3 See especially, Zander, M., “The Woolf Report: Forwards or Backwards for the New Lord Chancellor”, (1997) Civil J.Q. 208 Google Scholar. For Woolf's, Lord reply see “Medics, Lawyers and the Courts” (1997) Civil J.Q. 302 Google Scholar. See also “Woolf on Zander”, (May 23, 1997) New L.J. 768 Google ScholarPubMed.
4 Published in Essays on European Law and Israel, Rabello, A.M., ed., (Sacher Institute for Legislative and Comparative Law, Faculty of Law, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1996) 719–731 Google Scholar.
5 Op. cit., at 725.
6 Ibid.
7 Final Report of the Committee on Supreme Court Practice and Procedure (1953) Cmd. 8878 Google Scholar.
8 See n. 21, infra and accompanying text for evidence that pre-trial conferences were not in fact as successful as Evershed thought.
9 Diamond, Master, “The Summons for Directions”, (1959) 75 Law Q.R. 43 Google Scholar.
10 In a paper prepared for a Workshop on Civil Procedure in London.
11 (1968) Cmnd. 3691.
12 Rules of the Supreme Court, Order 38A, rule 2A.
13 [1995] 1 All E.R. 385.
14 Personal injury claims over £1,000 are at present not included.
15 Report of the Personal Injuries Litigation Procedure Working Party (1979) Cmnd 7476.
16 Report of the Review Body on Civil Justice (1988) Cmnd. 394. For an account of its recommendations see the 30-page note in the (October, 1988) Civil J.Q. 281-312.
17 See figures cited in n. 38 of my July 1997 article in the Civil J.Q., see n. 3 above.
18 Civil Justice on Trial — The Case for Change (1993).
19 The Runciman Royal Commission on Criminal Justice which sat for a mere two years, commissioned and published no less than 21 research reports. For a list see pp. 254-255 of the report, (1993) Cmnd. 2263.
20 For details and references see Zander, Michael, “How Does Judicial Case Management Work?”, (March 7, 1997) New L.J. 353 Google Scholar; and (April 11) 539.
21 Rosenberg, M., The Pre-Trial Conference and Effective Justice (Columbia University Press, 1964) 68 Google Scholar. See also the study of serious fraud cases done by Prof. Michael Levi for the Runciman Royal Commission. In regard to pre-trial reviews Levi said, “none of the defence lawyers I interviewed argued that pre-trial reviews had any significant effect on the development of the case”. (The Investigation, Prosecution and Trial of Serious Fraud, Royal Commission on Criminal Justice Research Study No. 14, 1993, 105). See to the same general effect the Crown Court Study. Judges in crown court cases were asked whether they thought the pre-trial review had saved much time and money at trial. Two-thirds (66%) said no; a quarter (24%) said a little, and 8% said a fair amount of time had been saved. Only 1% said a great deal of time had been saved. (M. Zander and P. Henderon, Crown Court Study, Royal Commission on Criminal Justice Research Study, No. 19, 1993, sec. 2.8.9).
22 For a pessimistic assessment of the proposal in the Woolf report see Zuckerman, A.A.S., “Lord Woolf's Access to Justice: Plus ça Change …”, (1996) 59 Mod. L.R. 773 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
23 Interim Report, p. 192.
24 Final Report, p. 140, para. 16 and p. 141, para. 20.
25 Bannister v. SGB plc., decision given on April 25 — see (May 9, 1997) New L.J. 685. In a new departure, the decision was immediately placed on the Internet: http://www.open.gov.uk/lcdhome./htm.
26 The figure of 20,000 came from the insurance company that deals with claims against solicitors. But there will obviously have been many additional cases where no claim was made.
27 Under the Courts and Legal Services Act, 1990, secs. 4, 111, 112 the court may disallow, or order the lawyer concerned to meet wasted costs. These are defined as costs incurred as a result of any “improper, unreasonable or negligent act or omission on the part of any representative or any employee of a representative”.
28 [1994] 3 All E.R. 848 C.A.
29 Report of the Committee on Personal Injuries Litigation (1968) Cmnd. 3691, pp. 151-152, para. 2.
30 Lind, E. Allan et al. , “In the Eye of the Beholder: Tort Litigants' Evaluations of Their Experiences in the Civil Justice System”, (1990) 24 Law & Society R. 953 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
31 Matruglio, T., Plaintiffs and the Process of Litigation (Law Foundation of New South Wales, 1994)Google Scholar.
32 Ibid., at 30.
33 Ibid., at 31. (“Plaintiffs who received the same amount of compensation as expected were more likely to be satisfied with case costs. The odds of those plaintiffs being satisfied were fives times those for plaintiffs who received more compensation than they expected”.)
34 Ibid., at 32. (“Perhaps the most important finding was that expected duration and not actual duration was a significant predictor of plaintiff satisfaction with case duration. Also important was the finding that the odds of satisfaction were greatest when a case took the same amount of time as expected compared with when it took less time. Again, the indication is that it is the matching of expectation which is most important to plaintiff satisfaction”.)
