Tony Guise reports from the Civil Justice Council’s costs conference
On 13 July 2022, the Civil Justice Council (CJC) held an invitation- only costs conference in Mary Ward
House, London. Mary Augusta Ward CBE was a social reformer and novelist. She was also an anti-suffragist who became founding president of the Women’s National Anti- Suffrage League. But her zeal for reform and the location of Ward House in Bloomsbury – scene of many an intellectual debate – made it a fitting venue for the CJC conference.
My primary interest in attending lay in ensuring the meeting supported a robust regime of sanctions for failing to engage meaningfully in pre-action [A]DR. The need for an early sanction was not lost on the Master of the Rolls, who gave the keynote speech. (I will ret...