Few practitioners would deny that early disclosure of the plaintiff's claim for special damages and future loss in personal injury cases facilitates a more open and streamlined approach to the litigation.

But the complete absence of any commensurate obligations on the defendant is unfair and can be extremely wasteful of costs and court time.

Far too often, a defendant's case on financial loss does not emerge until shortly before trial or even cross examination of the plaintiff.

As a result, it may be impossible adequately to estimate the length of trial, to know whether further witnesses need to be called by the plaintiff to deal with promotion prospects, or expensive employment consultants instructed.

Too many cases are settled at the door of the court, or a day or two beforehand, which could have been resolved long before the pre-trial preparation costs are incurred.

Whether the defendant is an employer, car driver or government department, this is a waste of resources.Since June 1990, RSC ord 18, r.12(1A) and CCR ord 6, r.1(5) have obliged the plaintiff to serve a schedule of financial loss on the commencement of proceedings.

Furthermore, as the notes to the High Court rule now make clear, the plaintiff's financial loss schedule is to be deemed a pleading which 'cannot be departed from at the trial unless prior leave to amend is obtained'.

To compound matters, automatic directions at RSC ord 25, r.8(1A) and CCR ord 17, r.11(7) require that service of each further medical report during the case by the plaintiff must be accompanied by another statement of special damages, although this is frequently impracticable or simply unnecessary.

It is unclear whether failure to do this makes ser vice of the medical report invalid.

Adamson v Ross [1993] CLY 1417 also indicates that the plaintiff's financial loss schedule must include a multiplier.It is ironic that these developments, supposedly to promote a 'cards on the table approach' to personal injury litigation, have actually led to the removal of the only formal obligation on the defendant to serve a counter-schedule or do anything at all in response.

This used to be set out clearly in the practice note dated 1 August 1984 (still referred to fleetingly at para 18/12/22 of the White Book), but is now redundant with the introduction of the above amendments and has not been replaced.

A more creative use of the court rules is therefore called for.Despite the absence of any formal procedures for obliging the defendant to serve a counter-schedule in good time before trial, there is a range of steps that can be taken to achieve this result.

First, a request for further and better particulars of the paragraph in the defence containing a denial or non-admission of the claim for damages can be served.

This should be a thorough attempt to elicit the defendant's case on financial loss, and can be served early on in the action, with, say, any further and better particulars of the plaintiff's case.

Now that the financial loss schedule is deemed part of the plaintiff's pleaded case, the absence of a counter-schedule must, by definition, mean that the defence is defective: a positive case must be made out (see para 18/12/6 in the White Book).

In the same vein, an application to strike out the offending paragraph in the defence because it may prejudice, embarrass or delay the fair trial of the action, under RSC ord 18, r.19(1)(c), is perfectly legitimate.Defendants frequently contend at trial that a plaintiff has failed to mitigate his or her loss without an eyebrow being raised.

Strictly speaking, however, this is in breach of RSC ord 18, r.12(1)(c) which requires that particulars of any facts on which the party intends to rely in mitigation must be pleaded.

If the principle is good enough for commercial cases, it is good enough for personal injury litigation and, again, can be marshalled in aid of an application for further and better particulars or to strike out.

Although there is no direct county court equivalent to this rule, s.76 of the County Court Act 1984, which applies High Court practice if there is a lacuna in the county court rules, would be relevant; and CCR ord 17, r.11(4)(a) gives power to strike out.Next, interrogatories can be served to pin defendants down, requiring specific admissions or reasons for refusing to accept each aspect of the plaintiff's claim with an alternative calculation where appropriate.

It is becoming increasingly easy simply to get orders that a defendant serve a counter-schedule, as happened in the county court case of Green (Richard William) v Novelle Press [1993] CLY 3187.

There, the judge found that he had authority to make the order under CCR ord 13, r.2(2)(a), which gives the court power to order particulars for defining the issues in the proceedings, and CCR ord 17, r.11(4)(a) under which the court can, in addition to striking out, give such further directions as it considers appropriate.

A colleague of mine even gets orders that the defendant 'be deemed to admit the plaintiff's financial loss claim' unless a counterschedule is served within the time specified.

If the resultant counter-schedule is defective - for example, merely repeating the non-admissions in the defence without asserting an alternative case - one can then resort to the remedies listed above.Such applications should, where possible, be combined with requests for specific discovery and debarring orders if the defendant has failed to serve expert evidence.

By doing so, one increases the chances of settlement, reduces pre-trial pressure on the plaintiff, and makes the case easier to value in the light of any payment in.

Whilst those responsible for the formulation of court procedure seem to know little or nothing of the realities of personal injury litigation, there is no reason why the rules that do exist cannot be turned to advantage.