Will the countless hours spent on Lord Woolf's civil justice reforms be lost in the cost/benefit melting pot of the new Lord Chancellor's review by former Treasury Chief Sir Peter Middleton? Let up hope not.

The agenda for reform was welcomed by the Law Society's Council which has listed among its priorities promoting the availability of legal aid and helping the profession to adjust to the Woolf reforms.

For example, the Council supported:-- A single set of court rules;-- A fast track for straight forward, low value claims but only after piloting and with a level of fixed costs that allows the solicitor to do a proper job without cutting corners;-- Offers to settle, pre-action protocols and effective case management to encourage settlement and shor ten trials;-- Compatible IT systems that allow practitioners, the courts and the Legal Aid Board to communicate better; and-- A civil justice council headed by the Vice Chancellor, Sir Richard Scott, as a focus point to oversee the new system and give civil justice the status it deserves.Even so, the Law Society's welcome of Lord Woolf's Access to Justice report was not all embracing.

It voiced its concern about proposals on experts and disclosure of documents, and the Council emphasised that the litigation culture change -- which is already happening -- will only take root in a spirit of partnership between the Lord Chancellor's Department, the court service, the judiciary, the professions and the consumers for whose benefit it is really intended.Without this partnership, the opportunity to make genuine improvements will be missed and the wave of change will wash over the interests of the clients.

The profession's ability to represent clients' interests effectively will depend on reforms that actually work.For example, the 44% of solicitors who practise civil litigation know that although a new single set of court rules will be a major step forward, the government must not introduce another equivalent of the automatic directions strike-out fiasco.

As the Court of Appeal said in Bannister v SGB plc & Ors, 'This lamentable history surely provides an object lesson on the reasons why draconian new rules should not be introduced into litigation practice without first being submitted to a widespread and appropriately critical consultation process.'Such strong words allow the voices of those who question the need for drastic reform to turn up the volume.

Professor Michael Zander and Lord Woolf have locked horns on the fundamental question of whether the Access to Justice proposals will make things better or worse.

The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers has challenged the suitability of a fast track-fixed costs system for personal injury claims, and concern has been expressed on further extending the current practice of front loading case preparation followed by rapid and rigid time scales -- recently described as 'boil-in-the-bag' litigation.Perhaps influenced by such considerations or by rumours of a Treasury 'black hole', Lord Irvine has placed the reforms into a single review.

This combined approach must be correct because the emphasis on value for money in the Access to Justice reforms has always depended on adequate resources for the new system and proper funding for the consumers.

If the review gets this balance right, it should remove much of the present uncertainty and may alleviate practitioners' fears of being catapulted onto a new litigation field that in theory is more level, but in practice has more bumps.