Website reviews

One Brick Court

www.onebrickcourt.com

One Brick Court is a barristers’ chambers which specialises in privacy and defamation law. While, as I understand it, the law relating to defamation differs somewhat south of the border, the materials available on this website are bound to be of interest and use to anyone practising in this field, north or south of the border.

Under “publications” the site provides access to the text of articles written by members of the chamber, usually for other publications rather than specifically for the website. Browsing through a few of these, I found them to be well written, well referenced and well laid out. The “talks” section, by contrast, has fewer entries which tend to be at much greater length, but still just as informative and useful, with references etc.

The media law update gives a brief summary of the facts and ratios of recent cases in the fields of media and defamation, and rounds off a useful and attractive website.

One Crown Office Row

www.1cor.co.uk

One Crown Office Row has a diverse range of practice areas but, somewhat disappointingly, there is very little in the way of substantive information on any of them on the main site. However, this disappointment is more than compensated for by the presence of a specialist sub-site whose gateway nestles at the foot of each page, where a large blue button invites the visitor to avail themselves of the “Human Rights Update” (www.humanrights.1cor.co.uk). The chambers rather proudly boasts: “Anticipating the wide impact the Human Rights Act would have in all areas of law, One Crown Office Row started this guide and regular cases analysis in 1998. It is happy to share this resource as a public service.” And what a service! A more tempting store of goodies you could not hope to find.

Where to start? Pages of articles on the Act and the Convention, together with separate pages for each of the incorporated rights make for a good starting point for beginners. There is a series of articles on topics germane to human rights law which take a more informal, and sometimes chatty, tone than the previous site. Thereafter there is a truly impressive array of case digests (both domestic and European) arranged by subject matter. The site claims to have over 700 of them.

Interestingly, the site offers an interactive forum which it suggests you use for discussion of human rights issues. I have to suggest that any such conversation is likely to be one-sided since the forum, on inspection, consists almost entirely of unanswered questions from members of the public seeking advice on such weighty matters as whether the HRA means they have a right to open a B&B in their front room (sic)!

Doughty Street Chambers

www.doughtystreet.co.uk

Doughty Street Chambers again have a variety of practice areas. And again not much in the way of discussion on the law in each area. There are a couple of areas I would recommend, however. By first clicking on “resources/search” and then on “speeches” you will find a short list of speeches delivered by members of the chambers – principally by Geoffrey Robertson QC. The topics are wide ranging and are likely to be of interest to most visitors, e.g. “AIDS and the law” and “War Crimes: the end of impunity?”

Additionally, in the same section, click on “updates on legal developments” for, well... updates on legal developments. These are mostly brief paragraphs on recent cases and so on, but there is some interesting commentary on judicial review issues included at present.

Gray’s Inn Tax Chambers

www.taxbar.com

Gray’s Inn specialises in tax and revenue cases. This site, though with an interesting pinkish-purple colour scheme and ugly frames layout, will be invaluable to anyone practising (or even dabbling) in tax law. First, the articles section has almost 30 erudite articles on various aspects oftax law.

Secondly, the tax case reporting service does a good job of reporting tax cases (mainly those with which the chambers has been involved) and full transcripts are available in Word or Acrobat format for many of these cases.

The website includes downloadable versions of the “GITC Review” with up-to-date information on the world of tax law. There is also a set of links to useful sites (from around the world) for tax professionals and a guide to the tax appeal process in the United Kingdom.

The web review column is written by Iain A Nisbet of Govan Law Centre. e: iain@absolvitor.co.uk

All of these links and hundreds more can be found at www.absolvitor.com.