The Heilbron report, 'Civil justice on trial -- the case for change', published in June 1993, has so far provoked virtually no reaction from the Lord Chancellor and his department , to whom it was by implication addressed.

Of course, it takes time to work through 72 recommendations, but the lack of enthusiasm with which the popular press greeted the report suggests that simplifying litigation procedures for the diminishing minority who can still afford to litigate arouses little general interest and may therefore have low political priority.The report's crumbs for the masses are largely confined to: recommendations for making litigation more 'user friendly', such as the maximum standardisation of High Court and county court rules and terminology; improved facilities for litigants, such as meeting and rest rooms, telephones, faxes, copiers, creches, refreshments, car parking; more help from officials; simplified and more comprehensible forms; a procedural guide, etc.

There is no mention of the need for greater financial assistance to enable potential litigants to pursue their causes.For the rich (including the legally aided) the recommendations are mainly aimed at minimising delay.

These include: encouraging the judiciary to be more interventionist to speed proceedings; the introduction of pre-trial reviews by a judge following set down -- limited however to procedures (rather than a head banging exercise to induce settlements as in some US courts, but including 'consideration of alternative dispute resolution (ADR)'); earlier sight of documents produced under subpoenas duces tecum; speeding trials by the general use of skeleton arguments, witness statements being taken as examination in chief and allowing more pre-reading time for judges with a reading guide; and ending the reading aloud of reserved judgments.

Other recommendations include: allowing judges to lean on time-wasting counsel and to call for written arguments and formalised judicial involvement in trial planning; the improvement of county court procedures by implementation of deadline listing systems; enforcement of money judgments by bailiffs certified and controlled by district judges; and special procedures for the issue of Mareva injunctions in county court matters.

Also included are: the power to award limited costs on small personal injury claims; allowing parties to agree to paper hearing; shortening limitation of action periods; reduced use of deputy High Court judges (which has recently been addressed thanks largely to public bludgeoning by the Lord Chief Justice).The most revolutionary recommendation is a shift from party control of litigation to total court control by supervision of the procedural stages of law suits.

Each case would have its own timetable; more realistic (sometimes longer) response times (and a restriction on agreed extensions of time); monitoring with 'prompts'; and the residual sanction of automatically dismissing cases that are excessively delayed (thus rendering dismissals for want of prosecution otiose).This would require total computerisation.

But are the objectives entirely clear? Delay is unquestionably bad, but is the IT sledgehammer needed? Timetabling seems bound to burden the well-run majority of cases because solicitors will be prevented from managing their overloads by re-scheduling less pressing cases.

Might not those delays that seriously need attention be more simply controlled by giving any legitimately disgruntled litigant a right to apply to the court for a supervised timetable?If the need to minimise delay is eliminated then the function of IT becomes administering the increasing volumes of litigation, mostly small disputes and debt collections.

Do these cases require, or justify, IT tr eatment? The options for IT in litigation are enormous -- one need only read the mind-bending proposals in the visionary and widely circulated discussion paper on the use of IT for litigation prepared by Colin Jaque and Nicholas Bard -- as are the possibilities for not getting it right.

The Stock Exchange's experience with Taurus is a salutary reminder.

It would have been helpful if the report had described more clearly the positive gains foreseen from computerisation.Another major recommendation, repeating Sir Stephen Brown's committee's proposals, is to merge the civil divisions of the High Court (except family).

The aim is to set the basis for a unified listing system, enabling judicial skills to be deployed more efficiently.

The benefits of such a disruptive, to some extent anti-competitive and potentially costly merger may be questionable.

We are not told -- in the case, for example, of the different policies of the divisions on retaining files -- which will be the mergee.

It also seems desirable that any merger plan be fully compatible with the proposed new IT structure, when and if it appears.

No doubt it would be excellent, as suggested, to introduce IT for law reporting, but this is basically for the law publishers and the report fails to indicate how the tremendous initial costs might be financed.The report suggests a new procedure for limiting discovery by mutual agreement, but remembering, as Lord Denning has observed, that litigation is war, one must wonder how often it will be used.

Doubts must also arise over the suggested pilot scheme for examination of selected witnesses orally pre-trial.

No doubt a few door-of-court settlements would be brought forward by the additional knowledge obtained in this way but if, as seems probable, the examinations were to become de rigueur in all cases, the result overall could well be a tactician's dream and a cost and delay black hole.

One of the silent strengths of the current system is a minimum of costly interlocutory procedures.The report recommends a pilot scheme to encourage early settlements through the use of ADR in cases identified by judges as suitable, using mediators co-opted from CEDR, IDR Europe, the CIArbs and the BAE, who may be non-lawyers unless the parties are legally represented (the optimistic expectation being that the pilot mediators will act gratis at their own premises).

Voluntary ADR now has an established, if uncertain, place in dispute resolution.

But, according to the report, in the USA only 10% of disputes are estimated to be resolved by ADR and, when cases are referred to ADR by the courts, the settlement rate is only 50%.

These figures alone make ADR after litigation has commenced an unlikely starter.It is proposed to meet the cost of the reforms by 'very substantially' increasing court fees.

This is presumably thought acceptable on the basis that litigation today is only for the rich.

Unfortunately, the recommendations are not costed, so the proposal cannot be evaluated.

Approval is given to the 'next steps agency' to manage and run the court service from within, but independently of, the LCD, yet under the Lord Chancellor's supervision.

Clearly, if the agency is to be responsible for introducing IT, its chief executive must be of the highest professional calibre, skilled at controlling large numbers of people as well as having a systems mentality.Those who are too poor to litigate may gain some comfort from the report's recognition of the desirability of earlier settlements, although they will have less enthusiasm for the report's addendum that the settlements be achieved through 'the court process or by alternative dispute resolution'.

The public needs to settle its disputes without litigation or ADR.

If a way could be found of very substantially increasing pre-litigation settlements, and of helping to finance the litigation of deserving cases that cannot settle, most of the present problems would evaporate and the profession could acquire millions of new clients with little net loss of fee income.

This would be a truly 'radical review' and a worthy subject for the next joint working party.

A major re-think of fundamentals is more urgently needed than random systemic improvements.