A rare find...

"Sound the A L A R M

Ping! goes the alarm signal in the lawyer’s mind,

Stop! It says, there was something on this quite recently,

But, where?

It needn’t have been a case.

An order, perhaps?

Or some promise by a Minister?

Anyhow, there was something.

And the wise man turns to CURRENT LAW

to check up. It takes him only a moment

to find what he is looking for or to make

sure that it was a false alarm.

You get further, faster with CURRENT LAW.

Write for full particulars.

Sweet and Maxwell LTD"

(the layout and text of this poem has been copied exactly as published)

This poem was found in ‘Where to look for your law’ a 1957 edition published by Sweet and Maxwell, a copy of which was found in our recent warehouse clearance.

As an avid marketer and follower of the series Mad-men, which follows a 1960’s advertising agency in all its glory, I can’t help but think has marketing changed that much over the years?

I am not sure it has. The 'Current Law' advert has all the traditional advertising ingredients; enticing headline, the formulaic consumer problem, add in a dash of fear and a sprinkle of wit and sign off with a solid call to action ‘Write for particulars’!

What has changed is people’s perception of marketing and the vast array of delivery mechanisms available to us today. The lightning speed at which technology has developed over the last decade has advanced our communications and opened the door to some incredibly sophisticated methods of speaking to our customers.

As a result of this advertisers and marketers alike can overcomplicate the job at hand, trying desperately to be smarter in their prose than their counterparts.

What is so endearing about the ‘Current Law’ advert is the simplicity of the approach: clarity of thought. What do I as a Lawyer think...what do I as a Lawyer then do...Bingo there’s an advert in there somewhere!

If there was an award for vintage adverts this one would get my vote.

The new ICLR adverts are currently displayed at Chancery Lane and Temple stations, look out for them and post me your thoughts.

The ICLR Annual Mooting Competition 2010-2011

On Wednesday 30th March 2011 the Open University took on the University of Exeter in the final of The ICLR Annual Mooting Competition. The prestigious event was held in the sumptuous Large Pension Room at Gray’s Inn, a space which offers the perfect setting for a legal debate.


The Large Pension Room at Gray's Inn and the ICLR Moot Shields

Philip Zack took to the stand first for the Open University in front of Lord Justice Elias and Mr Justice Cranston, before Damian Wynne offered his submissions. Joshua Kinrade opened for the University of Exeter before handing over the argument to Emma-Lea Martin.

Philip Zack offering the judge's his submission

After Philip Zack’s right to reply both of the judges retired for a short period to make the all-important decision. Upon their return they provided a quick judgment on the case before announcing to the expectant audience that the Open University was the winning team. As always the judges were extremely impressed with the exceptionally high standard of mooting and they both agreed that it was quite difficult to decide on a winning team.

Both teams with Mr Justice Cranston (centre left) and Lord Justice Elias (centre right)

After the moot the mooters, judges and guests alike were able to soak up the Inn’s rich ambience while enjoying a glass of wine, enabling everyone to discuss the evening’s events.

The Open University Team with their lecturer Keren Bright and Andrew Dobson, our sponsor from The Law Society Charity

Well done to both teams for reaching the final and thank you to all the teams who took part, making this competition one of the most exciting to date.

We would like to thank both of the esteemed judges, Lord Justice Elias and Mr Justice Cranston, for offering their time and expertise, and also the judges from the semi-finals, Keith Etherington, Michael Franks, Clare McConnel and Simon Harker, for all their help at The Law Society in February.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank The Law Society Charity for their continued support and extend a special thanks to Andrew Dobson, their Company Secretary, for taking the time to attend the event.

Details of The ICLR Annual Mooting Competition 2011-2012 will be released at the end of August 2011.

A suitable case for tweetment (Part 2)

In a recent speech on open justice the Master of the Rolls added his support to the idea of tweeting from court.

"I welcome the Lord Chief Justice’s Interim Guidance on Tweeting in Courts. Without wanting to prejudge the contents of the Final Guidance, it seems to me that, subject again to proper safeguards, the advent of court tweeting should be accepted, provided of course that the tweeting does not interfere with the hearing. Why force a journalist or a member of the public to rush out of court in order to telephone or text the contents of his notes written in court, when he can tweet as unobtrusively as he can write? It seems to me, in principle, that tweeting is an excellent way to inform and engage interested members of the public, as well as the legal profession. Whatever on the outcome of the consultation, I doubt however that we will see the development of tweeting from the bench.

Giving the Judicial Studies Board Annual Lecture on 16 March 2011, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury MR made a number of important points about the need for judges to make the justice system more accessible to the public.

"It is not the function of the courts or the judges to adjust their procedures or working practices with a view to stimulating public interest, let alone to curry favour with the public. But we have to be open to the public, and, I would suggest, we have to do everything reasonably practical to enable the public to have access so as to see what is going on in court, provided that it does not interfere with the trial process."

From a law reporting point of view (and it is worth noting that in addition to his many other public duties Lord Neuberger sits on the Executive Committee of the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting) one of the most interesting parts of the speech was where his Lordship dealt with the question of giving judgment. He said that

"if justice is seen to be done it must be understandable. Judgments must be open not only in the sense of being available to the public, but, so far as possible given the technical and complex nature of much of our law, they must also be clear and easily interpretable by lawyers. And also to non-lawyers."

A notable example of a good judgment on these terms was, he said, that given by Lord Atkin in Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 the well known case about the snail in the ginger beer bottle.

"The alleged snail may well have been in a ‘dark opaque glass’ [bottle] but there was nothing dark or opaque about Lord Atkin's opinion, nor was it too long or discursive: a very model of a modern major judgment."

His Lordship went on to discuss some of the problems caused by bad judgments. Some were bad because they were "over-long, meandering, thick with digressions, obiter dicta, and needlessly complex". Most law reporters are familiar with this type of judgment, which can be very difficult to report. But it is worth pointing out here that one of the great virtues of good law reporting is to enable such a judgment to become clear and comprehensible to readers.

Another problem was judgments being too short, for "if a judgment is too abbreviated, the judge will risk not considering the issues and previous authorities properly". While a good law report can help tame an overlong judgment, it is much harder for the reporter to supply the deficiencies of an overshort one. That is, however, the great virtue of including, as the ICLR has done in nearly every case published in The Law Reports since 1865, a summary of counsel's argument.

Brevity may be the soul of wit, but clarity must be the soul of the law. The difference is that between concision and precision. The problem with tweeting, of course, is that is favours concision over all other considerations. In that respect, it is probably not a good tool of clarity in law reporting. That said, let us offer once again our own tweet of that "very model of a modern major judgment":

“A manufacturer owes a duty of care and is liable in tort to the ultimate consumer of a product whose latent defect causes them injury” (133 characters): Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562.

For more like this, see our earlier blog on this topic. See also the Guardian law blog (by Siobhain Butterworth) on some of the other aspects of Lord Neuberger's speech.

Case search tips

The Case Search function on our new website is a powerful resource. Make sure you get the most out of it by following a few simple tips.

ALL CASES search

First, try entering in the Case name field as few words as possible. For example, try "Vesta" or "Vesta v Butcher" rather than "Forsikringsaktieselskapet Vesta v. Butcher".

Second, you don't have to fill in the Date of Judgment fields precisely. You can just type in years, for example, to do a search between 2001 and 2003.

Third, you can use the Publication reference field to limit your search to a particular series, such as PTSR.

CASE SUMMARIES search

The Case Summaries search is restricted to cases published in our WLR Daily series. These are reports of recent judgments which are likely to be published in full in the Weekly Law Reports or one of ICLR's three specialist series. The WLR Daily is a summary of the case posted soon after judgment, in most cases within a day or two. These summaries may be cited in court where a full report is not yet available, and are a helpful addition to the raw transcript of the judgment.

The last five WLR Dailies to be posted are listed on the Home page of the website and in the left hand navigation pane of other pages, so you can see at a glance what recent judgments have been reported.*

However, it is very easy to get a list of all the WLR D cases for the last week, month or year using the Case Summaries search. Just click on the button for "This week", "This month" or "This year" and then click on "Search now". No other fields need to be completed.

These date range buttons can be used independently or in conjunction with other fields. Thus you can search for all cases beginning "Regina" for the current year. You could further limit such a search by selecting, from the Court drop-down menu, the Divisional Court or the Court of Appeal.

The Case Summaries search form contains more fields than the form for All Cases. The reason for that is that the WLR Daily reports are free, and this form allows you to search all their contents.

You can target your search to particular topics by using the Subject matter field. This picks up anything contained in the catchwords at the head of the report, where the issues are categorised for indexing purposes.

Alternatively, you can search for any string of text appearing anywhere in the reports, by using the Free text field.

The reason why the same granularity is not available for the full reports searchable on the All Cases search form is simply that those cases are not freely available: they are subscription products. The search form is intended to enable anyone freely to ascertain whether a particular case has been reported in any series published by ICLR since 1865.

It does not, therefore, show cases published in other series. We do index many such cases in our Consolidated Index, otherwise known as the "Red Book" or "Red Index". This is a powerful research tool, which perhaps not surprisingly is one of our strongest sellers.

We are dedicated to providing the best law reporting service in the business. The new website is our new shop front. To some extent it is still "under construction", and we "apologise for any inconvenience" as the saying goes. But the Case Search is fully operational and a major improvement in functionality.

Hopefully, these tips will assist both regular and occasional visitors to make the most of this great new facility.




* Please note that the WLR Daily alerting service is currently unavailable, but will be reinstated soon.