Top judges and litigators will meet at the Royal Courts of Justice today (30 October) to discuss ground-breaking proposals for the management of “supercases”.
Among the possible changes which could be introduced following today’s symposium, chaired by Mr Justice David Steel, are a bespoke code for lengthy trials as well as the potential for a docket system specifically designed for longer cases.
The meeting will be attended by specially-invited delegates, including lawyers from Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Herbert Smith and Lovells, the firms involved in the BCCI and Equitable Life cases which both spectacularly imploded last year.
The symposium will examine what problems the two cases revealed, and whether such problems are confined to “supercases”. It will also look at whether the courts need to control the length of cases and the issues of trial management, appellate intervention and strike-out applications.
