It was Evans J in Johnson v Reed Corrugated Cases Ltd [1992] 1 All ER 169 who coined the expression 'costs is not an exact science'.

Variations on this quotation run like 'a golden thread' through many of the leading costs cases of the last 20 years, beginning perhaps with Donaldson J in Property and Reversionary Investment Corporation v Secretary of State for the Environment [1975] 2 All ER 436 when he said that costing is 'an exercise in assessment, an exercise in balanced judgment -- not an arithmetic calculation'.Yet recent cases and changes in taxation practice, whilst widening the scope for the exercise of discretion, have served to narrow the framework in which taxing officers can apply an objective view of costs, bringing about decisions on taxation in contentious business where the resulting allowances have more to do with the time spent than any assessment of what is a reasonable fee for a particular job.The concept of time recording arrived fro m the USA in the 1960s.

With the soaring overheads of the 1970s and the expense of growth in the 1980s, time recording provided an essential means of maximising billing revenue.

This billing initiative impressed the law makers to the point where case decisions and rule changes have conceded more to the principle of hourly charging.

Time has become the pivotal factor against which all other factors are measured.

Time spent is given a value by applying an expense rate.

Once 'uplift' is added there results a figure for solicitors' costs which, although found to be reasonable in all the circumstances, would often not stand up to any test of what a right-thinking person might realistically expect to pay.Many practitioners would view this as inevitable.

Yet not all time is chargeable and the reluctance of management to trim the working day to provide for a sensible number of billable hours has dampened the ability of many practitioners to recognise the difference between chargeable and non-chargeable time or judge for themselves what part of that time had been of use and how necessary it was to have been spent.The pressures placed on practitioners to record a given number of hours a day can be enormous and many may look upon time-recording more as a means of justifying their existence rather than as an aid to assessing a fair and reasonable charge to the client.From the evidence of practitioners' attendance notes, it is apparent that little understanding exists as to the proper function of time recording.

'Work done today on this case -- five hours' is a classic example of a valueless statement that will go undetected and uncorrected until such time as the client's costs recovery has suffered on taxation.Value and importance to the client are two criteria that can be relied upon to justify an enhancement on a solicitor's fee.

Yet small sums or simplicity in a case rarely have the opposite effect.

Practices can be reluctant to cut their cloth to suit the modest requirements of an otherwise straightforward matter, where value and importance are factors that have more to do with the client's ability to pay a bill that can be larger than the return or saving he or she could ever have hoped to have achieved by pursuing or defending the claim.Will this failure to recognise value for service lead to standard fees for all litigation? When Lord Woolf presented his interim report, 'Access to justice', in June 1994 the 'problem' of costs was left to be dealt with at a later stage.

Final proposals were published in July 1995.Lord Woolf stated: 'Proceedings should be conducted and disposed of in a manner, at a cost and within a time scale which is appropriate, taking into account the nature of the issues involved and the means of the parties.'He recommended:-- a 'fast track' for straightforward cases (with fixed standard costs);-- a new 'multi track' with tailored timetable;-- case management conferences, to include an estimate of costs to trial;-- greater obligations upon lawyers to explain their charges, to give estimates and advise when an estimate is likely to be exceeded; and-- legal professional bodies should undertake litigation for fixed fees.A consultation paper presented to the Woolf inquiry team by Adrian Zuckerman of University College, Oxford, sought to discuss the 'mechanisms for controlling costs in advance, such as budget setting, fixed fees related to value, fixed fees related to procedural activity'.Examining the 'weaknesses' of the present regime, Mr Zuckerman seems to suggest that the failure of the presen t system to curb costs is due to a strict adherence to 'the prevailing standards of hourly fees'.He observed that litigation can 'take on a life of its own, forcing lawyers to respond to each other's procedural move with little control over economy'.And he suggested that taxation should be 'conducted retrospectively so that it reflects the way in which the parties choose to conduct the case...retrospective taxation does not influence the steps which are pursued in litigation'.He concluded that 'closer judicial control of litigation creates opportunities for a new approach to costs which could reverse the present trend of spiralling costs'.Mr Zuckerman observed the blindingly obvious in that 'by the prevailing standard of hourly fees' the more time consuming the litigation process, the higher the costs'.

Standard or fixed fees for a particular task would, he reasoned, have a real effect on the mounting costs of litigation.The intention seems clear and with hindsight such a drastic attack upon solicitors' remuneration might have been avoided by sensible billing and an unfettered taxation system.The much ridiculed practice of 'weighing the file' may not have been so ridiculous after all but was quite literally an exercise in balanced judgment.

It is a pity that it has been abandoned to such an extent that the judicial process might now undergo such major upheavals just to force a similar practice upon us.