football, meatpies kangaroos and holden cars

Yes it's only two days until my civil litigation exam, and I am stretching to find ways to make the revision interesting.

as I ponder two quotes from the Managing Justice Report.

"Legal system reform is frequently chracterised as a policy choice between individualised, Roll's Royce justice, on the one hand affordable, robust, high volume 'Holden' justice on the other."

and a quote from the respected Hon. Justice Michael Kirby.

" A lawyer from Dickens' time, walking out of Bleak House into a modern Australian court on an ordinary day would see relatively few changes. Same wigs and robes. Same elevated Bench and sitting times. Very similar procedure of calling of evidence and presenting argument. Longer judgments: but still the same structure of facts, law and conclusion."

while with great respect to the Hon Justice Kirby I am of the optimistic view that the picture of Australian Civil Justice systems is not as " Bleak" as he purports in this statement and that the current day courts have made considerable headway towards getting their " House" in order.

the increasing use of expert witnesses, and court managed case flow management are steps in a direction towards a system that provides for the average driver of the "holden "


on the negative side are the number of unrepresented litigants and the cost and delay of the system.
what of access to justice?

does the national code of courts at state and federal level provide an even playing field that enables acess to fariness justice and the infamous "truth".

The Australian rules are changing and the players on the field need to adapt to meet the changing emphasis on dipspute resolution.

As David Bamford said at the start of the semester, these are exciting times of change in Civil Litigation