I went to Birmingham on Tuesday evening to hear Lord Justice Jackson launch a new costs management initiative in the Specialist Courts there, and got a taste of the energy which has brought us his Preliminary Report on Civil Litigation Costs so quickly.
As the main part of the meeting drew to a close, he rounded up a small team to finalise a form of spreadsheet costs template, saying airily that if it was not finished that night it could be concluded in the morning. Whether he actually intended to keep them there all night or stay overnight in Birmingham and resume in the morning was not clear, but his comment obviously concentrated minds and it was done within the hour.
I parted company with him at 7.30pm at New Street Station, and his Guidelines, reporting on the meeting and setting out how the trial would work, were completed at 09.52 the following morning (you see, document metadata does have its uses).
My own report on the meeting (which covered points of wider significance than the costs management trial itself) is being patched together on train journeys and will not be out for a bit – I cannot compete with this production rate. You may be interested in the meantime to read the Guidelines and to see the Costs Estimate Template.
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