It was inevitable that the opening session of last week's Legal Week Litigation Forum would be dubbed Woolf vs Pollock.

The stage was certainly set for a dramatic confrontation. At one end of the panel sat Lord Woolf, the former Lord Chief Justice and architect of the Woolf reforms. At the other loomed Gordon Pollock QC, who, thanks to his forthright advocacy during the Bank of England trial, has come to symbolise the enduring extravagance of the system Woolf was charged with mending.

Woolf delivered a passionate and uncompromising defence of the reforms he oversaw, branding the fees clocked up in the largest trials as 'offensive'. He certainly relished the opportunity to answer the many critics who have been lining up in recent months to give his reforms a good kicking.

Given Woolf's status as a legal institution, this was hardly the time and place for a dose of Pollock's famously-acidic wit and his performance was suitably restrained. For once, it seemed, it was the (former) judge setting the tone.

The event could have degenerated into a collective whinge about the shortcomings of the civil justice system. Thankfully, it was a more constructive occasion. Pollock's call for the introduction of a 'docket' system under which judges must take command of cases from start to finish was one of many practical ideas put forward by various speakers that drew support from the delegates.

True, there were the predictable calls for more resources, accompanied by the grim realisation that investing in civil justice does not win votes. But there was enough meat in the debates to suggest that the head of the commercial court, Mr Justice David Steel, will have plenty to talk about when he convenes a meeting in October with senior lawyers to discuss ways of reducing the cost of trials.

Ultimately, though, the civil justice system's excesses will only be reined in when the cultural changes the Woolf reforms set out to achieve permeate the system. The uncompromising way in which Pollock and Lord Grabiner QC cling to the view that their job is to get the best deal for their clients – whatever the circumstances, was plain for all to see at the conference. And who can blame them? They command vast fees for what Grabiner himself described as a "gladiatorial" approach to dispute resolution.

Quite how all this testosterone tallies with the over-riding objective of the Civil Procedure Rules for cases to be dealt with in a proportionate way is another matter – as Woolf himself politely pointed out.

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