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.