I recently read Sir Frank Kitto’s article “Why Write Judgments” which appeared in (1992) 66 ALJ 787. Many of my posts over the years have been about amusing things that Judges have written. However, the anecdote about an after dinner speech urging the High Court to put more colour into its written work really made me smile:
“In the dead of night, on All Hallows Eve, on a lonely road illumined by the wan light of a dying moon and winding serpent-like through the trees that stood as ghostly sentinels soon to become silent witnesses of stark and bloody tragedy …. Therefore this appeal should be dismissed with contempt as well as with costs.”
I actually read the article in the context of an “award” that I have to write for an Arbitration course that I’m doing. Writing like that might not go over too well with the examiners.
Creative commons acknowledgment for the photograph.
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Great article Paul and the finaleis spot on. Academics in Law can be and often are humourless, so they teach or indoctrinate their students to approach issues with an expectation of difficulty, dread and artificially and unnecessary inflated stress levels – and people ask why lawyers live in a crucible of stress? It is how they are trained!!!