“Commercial barristers are struggling,” said an article (‘The Bar Barometer’) in the pages of Legal Week in December 2006, offering analysis of the future prospects for leading chambers and supported by tales of woe from several leading commercial sets.
The reasons for these problems are not hard to find. Litigation is an expensive and time-consuming business; the Woolf reforms were designed both to reduce the number of cases going to court and the cost of such litigation. Large cases such as BCCI or Equitable Life are increasingly difficult to mount and may now be resolved at a much earlier stage – whether or not alternative means of dispute resolution are employed.
