This textbook provides a comprehensive account of the most important new Civil Procedure Rules, Practice Directions and Pre-action Protocols, which make up our newly reformed civil procedure system. The substance of the rules are considered in detail and their effect explained to make it clear how they operate in practice. Case law is examined to demonstrate how the court applies the rules in practice. The Woolf Reforms are used to explain the rationale of the new system. The book provides not only a clear guide to the meaning of the new rules but also a vital insight into the new culture, typified by case management, proportionality and the overriding objective, which has fundamentally reformed the principles on which our civil procedure system is based. A critique is given of the merits of the reforms and the likelihood that they will achieve their objectives.