THE BUSINESS LAW REPORTS Editor Paul Magrath:
Speech Transcript
- (taken from the Bus LR title launch)
My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen
I would like to thank you all for coming tonight, to this historic hall, the Tallow Chandlers’ Hall, and attending what I hope will prove to have been an equally historic event in the history of law reporting. And I would particularly like to thank Lord Bingham for his kind words about The Business Law Reports.
It is a very great honour to me and to everyone at the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting to have brought upon our heads, at so early a stage in this new endeavour, the full weight and expectation of judicial endorsement from the very highest level. And I don’t think you can get much higher than the senior Law Lord.
It’s even a bit daunting, in a way. I hope we turn out to deserve it. I’m sure we will, not least because of the value of our principal asset, by which of course I mean the reporters. The reporters are at the front line. They are, in Lord Denning’s phrase, the Watchdogs of Justice.
I recently came across a remark by Mr Justice Templeman, as he then was, who said: “It is a very salutary check for a judge to realise that if he does say something silly it is liable to get into the newspapers.”
Well, by the same token, if he or she says something sensible, it is liable to get into the law reports.
I have been a law reporter, among other things, for over 20 years. I have covered the law courts from first instance level to the Law Lords of the Privy Council. I have also worked in journalism and was for a time chairman of the Association of High Court Journalists. As Lord Templeman’s remark reminds us, the law and the press have long history of involvement in each other’s affairs, and I feel in a sense part of both camps.
I continue to see law reporting as a kind of journalism. Cases which are reportable are newsworthy cases. They may not be news in the sense of gossip, as so much of the news these days is, but they are news in the sense of being important recent information. They serve a purpose. They are there to be used, not merely collected and shelved in cabinets like fossils or first editions.
When I took on the task of editor, the use I had in mind for The Business Law Reports was, in essence, to help businesses and business people and those who advise them. Their problems are many and various. But they should not have to look for solutions in many and various places.
The Business Law Reports will therefore be adopting a new approach in the choice of cases included: what we call the question of reportability.
First, the choice of content will be governed by the type of client, rather than the type of law; and the type of client will be business clients, whether corporations, partnerships or sole traders.
Secondly, but connected with the first point, we will operate a principle of what I call Intelligent Selection, which may sound like an attempt to reconcile Darwin with his critics, but what I mean by it is that we choose only the important cases, rather than gathering up everything under a particular subject or category.
Applying those principles, we aim to report only those cases that really matter to business professionals and those advising them, whether about banking, companies, fair trade, business tenancies, insurance, intellectual property or anything else that is of particular relevance to business clients.
In short, what we aim of provide is: “one stop shopping for all your business precedents”.
Now I realise that some of you may be wondering: “Do I need this, if I already have all those other specialist series to do with company, commercial and intellectual property cases?” But in a year’s time, you’ll be asking yourself a quite different question: “If I have this, if I have The Business Law Reports, do I really need any of those other series?”
If we succeed in what we’ve set out to do, the answer will be, No.
But don’t take my word for it. The first issue is out and I would like to invite you to take a copy home and judge it for yourselves. Read our Chairman’s introduction and my Manifesto and cast your eye over the selection of cases included, which should give you a flavour of the kind of material we propose to include. It will come out monthly.
Subscribers will get a free bound volume at the end of the year and exclusive internet access to our online edition. It comes in a beautiful blue colour. What more can I say?
But before I leave you to enjoy the rest of the evening, I would just like to take this opportunity to thank again all my fellow employees at the Council (and you know who you are) who have helped with the preparation of the reports and the promotion of the series, and who in your various ways have put so much effort into the new venture and this launch.
[Raises glass.] I don’t know if I’m allowed to toast my own publication, but why not? To The Business Law Reports!
