Employment Tribunal decisions now available online

Earlier this year, Employment Tribunal decisions were put online for the first time. Before this, to read a judgment you had to apply in writing to the Tribunals Service in Bury St Edmunds and enclose £10 to cover costs!

Selected decisions from before 2017 are available, though it's not clear if and when more decisions will be added retrospectively. Although ET decisions are not binding on subsequent cases they give an interesting insight into how tribunals deal with legal issues and often provide a detailed account of the facts of the case. 

Interesting both for those studying employment law, and for employees/employers everywhere!

Anatomy of a Law Report

I've previously mentioned the excellent Learnmore web site, created by Emily Allbon at City University (in the context of exam tips, and mooting resources).

For those of you still daunted when faced by a full case report, then I'd recommend having a look at the Anatomy of a Law Report section of the site. This links through to a 'talking essay' which explains the function of the various parts of a law report, such as the catchwords, headnote, facts and procedural history.

Lord Neuberger reflects on the top 15 cases from the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting

To mark 150 years of the ICLR (which publishes the Official and Weekly Law Reports, among others) Lord Neuberger delivered a speech earlier this week highlighting the most important 15 cases from those 150 years. 
The cases were chosen in response to a survey circulated by the ICLR to subscribers earlier this year, and it fell to Lord Neuberger to discuss them.
The full text of the speech is now available.

For those of you interested in which cases were chosen, the list is below: 

• Rylands v Fletcher (1866) LR 3 HL 330
• Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co [1893] 1 QB 256
• Salomon v A Salomon & Co [1897] AC 22
• Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 
• Woolmington v Director of Public Prosecutions [1935] AC 462 
• Liversidge v Anderson [1942] AC 206 
• Central London Property Trust Ltd v High Trees House Ltd [1947] KB 130 
• Associated Provincial Picture Houses v Wednesbury Corporation [1948] 1 KB 223 
• Anisminic Ltd v Foreign Compensation Commission [1969] 2 AC 147
• Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990] 2 AC 605
• R v R [1992] 1 AC 599 
• Pepper v Hart [1993] AC 593 
• In re A (Children) (Conjoined Twins: Surgical Separation) [2001] Fam 147 
• A v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2005] 2 AC 68 
• Chartbrook Ltd v Persimmon Homes Ltd [2009] 1 AC 1101 

Supreme Court launches 'video on demand' service

Live streaming of cases heard in the Supreme Court has been available to view since October last year, the 'video on demand' initiative aims to complement this service.

As a news release issued yesterday explains:

Footage of the proceedings in court will be freely available via each case's page on the Supreme Court website, and will be uploaded the next working day. Once judgment is delivered, footage of the Justices' summary in court will also be published alongside the full judgment text and press summary. 

Footage will remain available for approximately one year after the court hearing, before being removed to make way for new cases. For copyright reasons, users will not be able to download the footage for long term storage or editing.

Links to both Current and Decided cases are available via the Supreme Court web site.

Law Reports added to LexisLibrary

The Industrial Cases Reports (1972 - present) and the Weekly Law Reports (1975 - present) have been added to LexisLibrary this week. 
Previously both sets were only available via Westlaw UK, and this is still the place to go for Weekly Law Reports published between 1953 - 1974.

The addition of the ICR to Lexis is particularly good news for those interested in employment law, as this content will complement the LexisNexis published Industrial Relations Law Reports, also available from 1972 on LexisLibrary.

For new students - understanding the different elements of a case

With A-level results out today, and clearing swinging into action, I thought that the following may be useful to those wanting to do some pre-course preparation.

Designed as a resource to accompany the text Strong, How to Write Law Essays and Exams, a recent case is annotated to show what the various elements are, and will help students understand how to read a case. 
It comes from the Oxford online resource centre which publishes material designed to complement its textbooks. These cover a range of legal areas including contract, public, tort and criminal law. 

Spotlight on the Times Digital Archive

The Times Digital Archive provides a facsimile of the newspaper from 1785-1985 and is one of the resources available via the Birkbeck eLibrary.

It is possible to search by keyword on topics as diverse as the abolition of slavery, the establishment of the UN, the debate surrounding Britain's entry into the Common Market and the miners' strikes of the 1980s.

Also available within the archive are the Times Law Reports, simply enter the party names to find a specific case, or try searching by keyword to find reports on a particular subject. (Use Advanced Search to limit your search to the Law section.)

I should add that I find this resource rather addictive, so not one to look at if you've an exam or essay deadline looming!

Free Access to Law Movement

You may be aware of BAILII (the British & Irish Legal Information Institute), which acts as a home for freely available public legal information, including cases, legislation & Law Commission reports. But did you know that it belongs to the worldwide Free Access to Law Movement?

Founded in 2002 by partners from Australia, Canada, South Africa, Hong Kong, the United States and the UK  & Ireland, the movement has grown since then to encompass representatives from across the globe.

One of its main aims is to maximise access to publicly available legal information in order to promote justice and the rule of law.

On a practical level, the member web sites can be a useful way of tracking down primary material from overseas jurisdictions. I've been grateful for the existence of AustLII and CanLII on more than one occasion.

The Free Access to Law Movement web site has a list of members and links through to relevant online resources. Alternatively you may like to start your search at WorldLII which covers material from 123 jurisdictions.

 

Remembering cases - tips from other students

Do you find it difficult to remember cases and their key facts?
Emily Allbon, Law Librarian at City University harnessed the power of Twitter and asked law students for their top tips on how to make that vital information stick. She has compiled a short article based on the responses she received.

LawCite

LawCite, funded by the Australian Research Council, and made available as part of the Free Access to Law Movement, is an international legal case and journal article citator.
It can be used to locate judgments (mainly from common law jurisdictions), and to see how these have been subsequently dealt with and commented upon. It is also possible to see where journal articles have been cited.
To date, LawCite has indexed over 3.5 million cases, articles and law reform documents and this will continue to grow over the course of the 3 year project.

Information taken from the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Library January Newsletter.

Key cases discussed on the BBC's Westminster Hour

The latest Sunday Supplement, part of the Westminster Hour saw Clive Coleman from Radio 4's Law in Action talking about 'Cases that Changed Our World'.
Each of the 4 episodes lasts just under 15 minutes and discusses influential cases from the past, including Carbolic Smoke Ball and Donoghue v Stevenson. Definitely worth a listen if you have a few minutes to spare.

With thanks to Matthew Weait, Reader in the Law School for providing me with the web link.

Open Law project

Some of you may know that the British and Irish Legal Information Institute provides free access to transcripts of cases heard over the last 12 years by the High Court, Court of Appeal and House of Lords. You may not, however, have heard about the Open Law project.

This project 'seeks to identify leading cases from the past and to make these freely and openly available on the internet to support legal education'.

Subjects covered on the BAILII web site include Contract, Tort, Criminal and Property law. Each subject contains approximately 200 - 300 key cases ranging from the C19th to recent decisions.
In addition to providing access to case law, the project also links to more than 200 older Law Commission Reports and over 150 Consultation Papers dating from the 1960s onwards. In the past older reports have not been available online so this is a very useful development.