Website reviews

www.bailii.org

This site was one of the first reviewed in these pages nearly three years ago. Bailli is the British and Irish Legal Information Institute whose goals include the provision of free access to British and Irish legal information. It is a voluntary organisation and relies on donations and voluntary support. It concentrates on access to British and Irish caselaw and legislation.  The home page is simple to use and gives immediate access to the various collections of materials. Among the most useful is Bailii Case and Legislation which is divided into English, Scottish and Irish material. Each of these categories is broken down by court and a further click gives a hyperlinked list of cases broken down alphabetically and month by month.  The Scottish section contains material sourced exclusively from the Scottish courts website (see below). However, the data are arranged differently. The home page also gives access to all the other cognate websites around the world if you need caselaw from non-British Isles jurisdictions. There is also a very good search engine which has a simple and an advanced function. If the case is new, there is a list of such cases in the different jurisdictions accessible from the home page (although some of the “new” decisions go back nearly a year). There is sometimes a wee delay in transferring the new cases to the main databases so if you cannot find a reference to a new case through the search engine, it may be found here. This site is very useful and sometimes produces the goods when other specialist or official web resources return a blank. Those responsible for its implementation and continuation are to be commended for this public service.

Subjective Rating (where 5 is excellent and 1 is poor and no rating indicate that that category has not been assessed)

Site design 4/5

Updating frequency 4/5

www.scotcourts.gov.uk

Most if not all Scots lawyers will know this site which since 1999 has carried the full text of all judgments handed down in the Court of Session and the Court of Justiciary as well as a few decisions from the sheriff courts. The search engine was at one time a fairly primitive, but surprisingly effective, “keyword search”. Last year the site was overhauled and the search engine now includes an option to make a structured search specifying dates, names of judges etc. which is an obvious improvement. So far as timing is concerned, decisions from the Court of Session always appear on the site very quickly after they are handed down, sometimes within hours. Unfortunately, despite the upgrade to the site, there is no summary provided of the case or even a simple categorisation to assist in searching for material, which does increase the slog-factor somewhat. The site contains lots of other useful stuff such as the court rolls, details of location of the sheriff courts, potted biographies and a surprisingly long list of restricted reporting orders in the announcements section. It may be easier to find specifically Scottish court material on this site than on the Bailii site.

Usefulness 4/5

Site design 3/5

Updating frequency 4/5

www.courtservice.gov.uk/judgments/judg_home.htm

The website for the court service, covering England and Wales, has recently been revamped, which may please some. The address given here is to that part of the site which is aimed at the legal or professional user. Unlike its Scottish equivalent, it only contains judgments selected by the judge. The authors of the site recommend that if you cannot find what you are looking for on their own site, to go to the Bailii site or the Smith Bernal site (the official court reporters): a somewhat surprising state of affairs some might think. This part of the database contains links to civil judgments of the senior courts (not including the Privy Council or the House of Lords) for about the last month. Clicking on the link takes the browser to a copy of the first few paragraphs of the judgment (with a lovely yellow background): in lieu of a full summary. If that is what you want, a further click takes you to the full text.  There is an alternative, full, database also available (the function of which is not explained)  which allows one access to a very basic search engine or a tedious list of the last 200 cases to be added to the database. It is a great pity that the electronic resources of one of the busiest common law jurisdictions in the world are not more accessible through the official and free resource.

Usefulness 2/5

Site design 3/5

Updating frequency 3/5