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I am sick and tired of hearing that these reforms were necessary because practitioners were delaying the progress of cases and that this was interfering with ability of the courts to allocate their resources fairly. That was, is and always will be complete tripe. The court allocates its resources as they are requested - it resolves issues such as times of high demand and times of low demand by lengthening or shortening the time we have to wait for hearings. All Jackson had to do to see a system working well was to have a look at the Family Division. In financial remedy cases are given a timetable as soon as they begin. Practitioners do, by and large stick to the timetable. What slippage there is the court controls quite well, an all without draconian penalties being meted out.

But of course, Jackson is a former high flying civil litigator. The notion of learning anything from family lawyers would have been anathema.