Category: Scots law

What Dumpling Learned Today, #1

Today, I learned that Scots no longer lay boys down on stones that mark boundaries and whip them, in order for them to be sufficiently traumatised by the event that they will memorise the position of the stones for the rest of their lives.

It appears that the development of fencing in the eighteenth century is wonderful in many, many ways.
And generations of boys must be truly grateful for this.

Online opinions, and offline submissions

What judges like best

This news from America about the online version of court opinions being the “official” version reminded me of a situation we have here in Scotland, although in this case it’s about acceptable electronic versions for submission to the court.

Technically, there’s no reason that Judges and Sheriffs won’t accept an electronic version of a case report – Practice Note 2 of 2004 authorises the use of an electronic case report when it is:

“reported in a series of reports by means of a copy of a reproduction of the opinion in electronic  form that has been authorised by the publisher of the relevant series, provided that the report is presented to the court in an easily legible form and that the advocate presenting the report is satisfied that it has been reproduced in an accurate form from the data source.”

What this should mean is that the electronic version of a case report should be perfectly acceptable to the court, unless someone decides that it’s not an accurate representation of the printed materials, and that as long as the person supplying the material to the court is happy that it’s an accurate copy of the printed material.

What actually happens is that no-one is willing to risk their submissions being rejected by the court because they don’t accept the electronic version to be a true copy of the printed form. If that happened, it would lead to a costly delay while the work of sourcing and replicating hard copy of the relevant cases has to be carried out. I haven’t had experience personally of electronic versions of cases being rejected (probably because we don’t take the risk of submitting them as anything other than a photocopy from the original!), but I have heard that various judges and sheriffs don’t look too kindly upon the idea of electronic case reports being submitted to them.

So, instead, seven years after the Practice Note was issued, everyone still continues to photocopy hard copies of case reports, and nobody wants to risk being told to go back and get a “proper” copy of a report.

The only good thing about this is that legal electronic database suppliers have taken the useful step of providing some of their case reports as a pdf scan of the original document, which the courts will happily accept, as it’s no different than a photocopy. Of course, that’s only useful if you can afford to subscribe to all the databases you need…

6 degrees of legal librarianing

You know that game, 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon, when you can use Kevin Bacon to link almost anyone in Hollywood in 6 steps or less?

Yes?
Well, it’s got almost nothing to do with this post, but I like the idea of it 🙂
Anyhoo, what was it I was going to blog about…oh yes – the problem of what degree is most useful in a legal information environment. See, I knew there was some reason I’d been thinking of degrees!
Y’see, Robert Gordon University have done something rather spiffing: they’ve launched a distance learning Law LLB, woo-hoo! Studying is part-time as standard, and can be accelerated to full time from 2012.
Now…this is kinda tempting, because as a librarian in law firm, I’m similar to many librarians in this and other specialist areas: I don’t have a degree in the subject I work in. Everything I’ve learned, I’ve either been taught by my previous or current boss (both infinitely patient in relation to daft questions), or picked up through doing the research for enquiries, and self-education in the job. I do have a degree (science), and a postgraduate diploma (information and library science), but they don’t really prepare you for questions about what is a medium filum fluminis, or extinguishing a real burden, or any of the other specialist-area specific stuff.
So what you tend to find is that, if they can afford it, and can fit it into their lives, a lot of law librarians try and get some sort of legal qualification. This helps with two issues: gaining a better understanding of the foundations of what we’re working with, and the processes and systems we work within. And it also helps to remind co-workers that, yes, actually, we are professionals too, just like them. You see, you could have qualifications coming out of your ears (and often, we do: Msc’s, Bsc’s, MAs, PGDips, Charterships), but in a law firm, to a lawyer, you’re not a professional unless you have a law degree – they’re the only degrees that count. And if you’re not regarded as a “proper” professional, then it’s far harder to get your advice and work to be taken seriously.
But there’s no other option for law firm librarians than to come into law qualified in other subject areas: it’s too specialised an area to have a degree or other professional qualification we can do. We come in, we learn and get on with it, and if we have time and money, we increase our qualification level by throwing in a law degree.
So obviously, I went about things the wrong way really, what you want to do is a law degree, THEN switch to being a librarian!
Now, if only I could afford to do that one at RGU…