Mention the word 'liquidated' to a passenger on the Clapham omnibus and he will probably think of a kitchen blender.

The last thing that will cross the individual's mind is a claim for a defined sum of money.That is why 'liquidated' and 'unliquidated' were prime candidates for reform as part of the plain English attack on the civil justice reforms, which has seen the demise of such favourites as 'plaintiff' and 'ex parte'.

'Liquidated' and 'unliquidated' become 'specified' and 'unspecified' but the impact of these is somewhat altered by the new provisions.There are two immediate effects of a claim being specified.

First, default judgment for the amount specified is available if a defence is not filed (although an anomaly in the new rules means that for the time being default judgment on a counterclaim - which was intended - may not be available).

And secondly, the automatic transfer provisions apply if a defence is filed.

Neither of these provisions should give much cause for alarm.Because the corollary is true - an unspecified claim means that although default judgment is available, the damages still have to be assessed and the automatic transfer provisions do not apply - it has been considered in the past that this has caused a measure of injustice which the new rules, to a limited extent, have attempted to redress.There was some pressure on the rule committee to abolish the distinction between liquidated and unliquidated claims, but it pulled back from this and the distinction, albeit with new titles, still exists.The injustices seemed to manifest themselves most markedly in road traffic claims.

Most of these are issued by legal expenses insurers, usually through firms of solicitors, the location of which bore no relationship to the addresses of either of the parties or the location of the accident, but which nevertheless, tended to issue proceedings at a local court.If the claim included an unspecified element, such as damages for general inconvenience, the action was not automatically transferred.

It would take an astute district judge or deputy to note that the case ought really to be transferred to a court more convenient to the parties.The other instance is with regard to judgment in default with damages to be assessed.

Until the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (CPR) came into force, this led to a ridiculous situation whereby the costs of the assessment often far outweighed the amount involved, because the assessment of costs could not be allied to a particular level other than scale 1 or scale 2.

It was not unusual to see an assessment of damages of, for example, £400 with costs as much as three times this amount.This uneven situation is remedied in the practice direction to part 26 of the CPR.

It replaces the 'assessment of damages' hearing with something known as a 'disposal hearing'.

The difference under the CPR is that, first, the court may allocate the disposal hearing to a track so that, for example, where the damages are not likely to exceed the small claims track limit of £5,000, the disposal can be allocated to the small claims track with the consequent limit on the amount of recoverable costs.

Secondly, even where the disposal is not allocated to a track, the principle of 'proportionality' will now apply, which should ensure that the recoverable costs are not out of proportion to the damages recovered.The CPR confirm that there is nothing to stop a claimant seeking what would otherwise be an unspecified sum (for example, 'damages not exceeding £15,000') as a specified sum (for example, 'damages in the sum of £15,000') and recovering that sum as a judgment in default, if the defendant fails to file a defence, without any additional enquiry as to whether that sum is justified.

However, the circumstances under which such a tactic should be considered might be a little difficult to conceive.