Goodbye House of Lords

30 July 2009

Always keeping up with the times, the House of Lords is screening the demise of hundreds of years of appeal hearings on the internet.

We’ve been watching the live feed and, frankly, it’s not going to win any Baftas. It’s a bit like Big Brother, what with the unusual outfits, parochial dialogue and heated debates.

But that’s where the similarities, quite rightly, end. Hear, hear.

A YouTube appearance by Lord Justice Mance, who explains the transition from House of Lords to Supreme Court in front of a chintzy backdrop, is rather better (marred, though, by the 10-year-old interviewer bellowing into the microphone).

This afternoon the lords are rattling through judgments on seven cases, including Moore Stephens v Stone Rolls and Fisher v Brooker (also known as the fight over the Procul Harum song Whiter Shade of Pale).

Jonathan Sumption - widely tipped as the next recruit to the Supreme Court - is leading on two of the seven cases today, but we can reveal he hasn’t turned up this afternoon.

Modesty? Not entirely. He’s on holiday in France, missing all the action.

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Also on TheLawyer.com: a student blogger says the LPC is a waste of time and attracts predictable vitriol; the 16 firms with PEP of over half a million; and what UK firms get wrong about India.