The Lord Chief Justice has a better oiled publicity machine than any of his predecessors and a good job too.

Anything that gives justice and its judges a more human face has to be welcomed.

Practice directions, on the other hand, are mostly dry and dusty, like the cupboards in our older courts.

Yet last week Lord Taylor grabbed lots of headlines with his latest practice direction called, unpromisingly, 'Case management'.The buzz words in the debate on civil justice are 'change the culture'.

A number of cultures are said to need changing.

That the progress of civil cases is mostly dependent on the parties and their lawyers is seen as a recipe for unacceptable delay and unnecessary cost.Delay, said the civil justice review, 'causes continuing personal stress, anxiety and financial hardship to ordinary people and their families.

It may induce economically weaker parties to accept unfair settlements.

It also frustrates the efficient conduct of commerce and industry.' The culture of the courts is still seen as Dickensian, lacking in technology, formalistic, rule ridden and difficult for most litigants to understand.

Actual hearings go on interminably and some judges and the lawyers who appear before them stick rigidly to traditional and time consuming procedures and attitudes.The National Consumer Council said in 'Ordinary justice': 'For consumers approaching the law for the first time, the legal system can seem like a mysterious ritual whose language and ways are unfathomable and whose outcome is a high risk gamble.'So Lord Taylor was quoted as saying: 'What we are trying to do is to change the whole culture which applies in civil litigation.' The civil justice review started the recent change attempts.

A number of its recommendations have been implemented by the government in both the county and the High Courts.

Exchange of witness statements in most cases and automatic strike-outs in the county court are among the more important cultural shifts.The pace of justice has speeded up somewhat but at the cost of a lot of expensive front loading of litigation.

The joint Law Society/Bar report 'Civil justice on trial - the case for change' (the Heilbron/Hodge report) added to the debate 18 months ago.

Lord Woolf's review is expected to produce some pretty radical solutions over the next year.

The Lord Chancellor, among many others, is much attracted to alternative dispute resolution.

ADR is seen as good because it cuts out court work, reduces the role of lawyers and it may come in family cases sooner rather than later.All the proposals for change support the idea of more hands-on involvement from our judges.The practice direction applies to the Queen's Bench and Chancery Divisions but not the Commercial Court on whose rules it is in fact based.

A similar direction is expected in both the Family Division and in the Court of Appeal.

The county court will inevitably be heavily influenced by the intentions behind the direction.The direction (see p.35) starts off by waving a big stick at practitioners.

'Failure by practitioners to conduct cases economically will be visited by appropriate orders for costs, including wasted costs orders.' So we can certainly expect more interlocutory costs orders to be made 'in any event' rather than being left to the end of the case.Applications for wasted costs orders on the other hand are a nasty way of prolonging litigation.

Threats to make such an application are being increasingly used in the course of inter-solicitor negotiation, often in an attempt to bully a settlement.

The Master of the Rolls in Ridehalgh v Horsefield [1994] 3 ALL ER 848 laid down some sensible and appropriate rules as to how wasted costs orders should be dealt with.

The case does not encourage their widespread use.

Practitioners must get to know the Ridehalgh guidelines.

It will not help the progress of litigation, or solicitors or counsel or their clients, if Lord Taylor's practice direction is taken literally and wasted costs orders mushroom.On a more procedural basis, witness statements are to stand as evidence in chief 'unless otherwise ordered'.

Courts will take that seriously which means get it right first time on your witness statements.

This might add to costs as many more cases settle before going to trial and additional expert preparation may now be needed.

There are sensible rules in the practice direction about court bundles, skeleton arguments and speeches, most of which exist already.

The impression is that we and our clients are more likely to be penalised in costs if we fail the time limits.But there are three more significant changes.

First the practice direction provides for the court to limit discovery.

The Heilbron/Hodge committee came up with some suggestions.

These include a requirement for an inter partes discovery conference and an amendment of ord 24.

More interestingly we proposed a restrictive discovery test which focuses on discovery only of documents which may have a significant effect on the outcome of the case.

If Lord Taylor wants to get to grips with too much discovery then Lord Woolf may be his answer.

A practice direction is not.Secondly, the court is to control the trial timetable by the use of judg es with their 'hands on'.

How or when is not wholly clear.

But the right is now clearly there to limit oral submissions, the taking of evidence, oral argument and the reading of documents or cases.

This should shorten trials if properly used.

It might also increase appeals from disgruntled litigants who may be advised their case could not be properly put.Thirdly, solicitors now have to file a pre-trial checklist two months before the case.

This really will concentrate our minds.

We have to decide on a number of issues: are the pleadings in order; what evidence will we rely on; what witnesses will we call and we must give their names; is discovery sorted out; and, very importantly, has ADR been considered and might it in fact help.The practice direction will undoubtedly play a part in shifting the culture.

It can immediately do something to shorten trials but there are precious few of those in comparison to the total number of cases started in our courts.

The other delays endemic to civil litigation might be improved simply because the culture is changing.

But solicitors and barristers will have to keep to the current time limits before much will happen to speed up the pre-trial process.

Automatic strike-out is beginning to have a salutary effect in the county court.

Why not try it out in the High Court if we really want cases finished.

Lord Taylor's main message is delay at your peril.

We all want faster resolutions of civil disputes and the practice direction will contribute to that.