If inroads are to be made into the excessive costs and unnecessary delays associated with civil litigation, it is essential to reduce the number of interlocutory applications and to ensure that time limits are observed.This message was conveyed to the Woolf inquiry by all the surveys conducted on its behalf and by the large number of representations made to the inquiry by lawyers and lay people alike.

The general consensus was that the quicker an action could be brought to trial, the less it would ultimately cost and the happier would be the clients.Perhaps the loudest complaint made to the inquiry was that the courts neither monitored nor enforced their own orders.

'Final' did not mean final.

'Unless' orders resulting in the debarring of some step or defence were set aside by appellate courts.

Few lawyers bothered to check what an order to do something 'in 12 weeks' meant in terms of calendar dates.

Ord 25, r 1(1), which requires a summons for directions to be taken out within one month of the close of pleadings, was honoured more in the breach than in compliance.Setting-down dates were seldom observed until the recent revision of practice direction No 24.

Often, summary judgment is sought not at the earliest possible stage in the life of the action but within months of a trial date, which therefore has to be vacated.It would send cold shivers down the spines of most solicitors and their indemnity insurers to witness the number of applications to strike out actions for want of prosecution that I hear every week.

Simple traffic accident or industrial claims are unresolved after six to eight years.

The number of notices to proceed after a year's delay are legion.

Witnesses rightly claim that they cannot remember accurately incidents about which they face cross-examination under oath.

They are frightened about being forced to give evidence about matters that happened long ago.

Yet the same system appears, to them, to protect lawyers from their delay.The provision of 'automatic directions' under ord 25, r 8 was heralded as a radical improvement on the previous need to obtain 'standard' directions from a master.

But I wonder how many personal injury lawyers can honestly claim to observe its requirements or its time limits.Litigants in person frequently claim, when the courts seeks to impose penalties for breaches of time limits, that there is one law for them and one for the lawyers.Perhaps we should look afresh at the time limits and, certainly, the proposal in Lord Woolf's final report that where an inadequate 'letter before action' is sent, a defendant in a medical negligence claim should be allowed three months as of right to investigate the claim before serving a defence.It is not only in the failure to observe time limits provided by the rules that this disregard of time occurs.

About one third of the time that I have to hear applications in my private room is wasted by late applications -- almost always consented to by the other side -- to vacate such appointments with little more than 24 hours' notice or even less.

Yet, if we packed the list and double booked against this eventuality, lawyers would be no less quick to claim compensation.Many masters now give detailed directions for the service of affidavits, lodging of p apers and skeleton arguments, with provision for the parties to apply if problems are encountered.

But how often do cases occur where affidavits are served at the door of the court with a bland request (or demand) for an adjournment 'in the interests of my client'?How would clients react if they knew what was occurring in their names? When Sir Michael Davies, as judge in charge of the non-jury list, insisted a few years ago that lay clients should be present when counsel applied to vacate trial dates, such applications by the Bar disappeared overnight.The remedy must, of course, lie with the court.

It is the judges and masters who must be seen to be taking the necessary steps to assist the profession.

The substitution of calendar dates for the taking of interlocutory steps in masters' orders rather than the obtuse 'within 28 days' is a modest reform but one which has been most effective and appreciated.

Unjustified failure to observe 'unless' orders resulting in the striking out of pleadings not served, refusal to admit witness statements not served on time, and the insistence that setting down dates mean what they say may be unpleasant medicine, but on the whole the profession has reacted favourably.The Court of Appeal in Berkeley Properties v Edgar [1996] The Times, 18 July, said: 'His Lordship was not in the least concerned with the court's convenience but he was concerned that the proper and regular administration of business in general before the courts should not be disrupted as a result of breaches of the rules of court which occurred without any justification whatsoever.

It was very important that the court's resources should be used as efficiently and effectively as possible.

That was not possible unless the parties co-operated.

Their co-operation involved them obeying the rules of court.' It will come as no surprise that the author of these words was Lord Woolf of Barnes.Three features of this observation are:-- The court is not being Draconian but will listen to justification for failure to observe the rules.-- It is not just the instant case with which the court is concerned but those cases in the pipeline whose convenience must be taken into account.

The resources of the courts are not infinite.

Everyone is entitled to a fair measure of the court time.-- Litigation is not a game of tactics, it is a professional activity in which the parties must co-operate.The majority of lawyers strive to observe the rules and the practice directions.

They and their clients want their actions heard with as little delay as possible and with as few interlocutory applications -- which only cost money -- as are necessary.

They respect a court which is both strict in its discipline and fair to all parties.Sadly, a few jeopardise the goodwill of the courts and of the profession by not making time of the essence.

There is no justice in a creditor having to wait years and to incur huge legal bills to recover an outstanding debt, nor in an injured claimant having to grow old with a disability whilst lawyers argue over the provision of some aspect of the interlocutory provisions or in an insurance company having to keep its files open and its reserves in place because an obviously bad claim cannot be resolved and it is forced to compromise the action to avoid wasting yet further irrecoverable costs.