The civil procedure landscape is changing fast. A new Evidence Act. The establishment of the Costs Court. The Federal Court’s rocket docket. The Supreme Court’s Commercial Court. The abolition of the County Court’s Practice Court in favour of a managed list approach. Early neutral evaluation. The increasing use of Associate Justices and Judicial Registrars. The New Courts Act project, which will produce one Act regulating the Supreme, County and Magistrates’ Courts. Now, here comes a big one: the Civil Procedure Bill, 2010. There are similar moves afoot at the federal level: the Civil Procedure Bill, 2010 (Cth).
Here is Corrs Chambers Westgarth’s commentary on the Victorian bill. And here is Allens’s. Lots of room here for a reinvigoration of the law of lawyers’ obligations to the Court. Justice Ipp’s ‘Lawyers’ Duties to the Court’ (1998) 114 Law Quarterly Review 63 ought to form the backbone of commentary to the Act, and ought to be compulsory reading for all those who join litigation departments. This speech of the Federal Court’s Justice Barker in 2009 is also worth a look.
