A Page on the Web, published in the Solicitors Journal. January 1998.

It was only four short months ago that I reported on the increasing availability of judgments on the web. Winter has seen a hive of activity in this area and you are now almost spoilt for choice, though the new services do come with a price tag.

Smith Bernal’s Casetrack

As its name suggests, Casetrack is not just a law reporting service, but also an alerting and tracking service. Judgments published are all those listed in the Courts of Appeal (Criminal and Civil Divisions) and QBD (Crown Office). Key facts are provided about every upcoming judgment listed and all other judgments from 1 January 1998.

Data recorded for each case includes case name, date, court, case number, judges, court from which appealed, representatives and restrictions. Cases are classified by subject area, leave and offences and details are given of the status and outcome of each case and the availability of full text transcripts. Full texts of approved judgments can be viewed, printed and downloaded.

New case records based on the court lists are created on the day the lists are supplied, and are available for access within Casetrack the next day. Additional information is added to each record every day, from the date of listing until judgment is given.

Casetrack is on the Smith Bernal website. A simple search template based on the core information fields listed above facilitates both specific and more speculative searching for cases.

There is an annual subscription charge of £3,500 for Casetrack as a stand-alone service or £5,000 for Casetrack plus unlimited access to view, print and download the full texts of transcripts. You can register for a 6-week free trial.

If you can’t afford this hit, don’t despair: archives of full text judgments will be put in the public domain.

Butterworths All England Reporter

All England Reporter is a new service from Butterworths which complements the All England Law Reports and delivers digests of cases of relevance to commercial lawyers, together with the corresponding unrevised judgments.

It aims to provide a comprehensive round-up of cases of interest to the commercial lawyer. Selection criteria are much broader than that followed for All ER.

Coverage will include most types of commercial action, with cases selected from the House of Lords, the Privy Council, the Court of Appeal and all relevant decisions of the High Court, as well as important decisions of the European Courts.

All England Reporter prices are from £3,000 to £7,500 per annum, according to the actual number of people who are likely to use the information rather than the size of the firm/set of chambers. You can sign up for a free trial.

All England Reporter employs Butterworths own proprietary NetBOS technology. This is a web version of their Books on Screen interface used on their CD-ROM publications.

The Court Service

The Court Service has expanded its coverage of notable judgments considerably. Launching from a diagrammatic map of the courts you can now access:

• In the Court of Appeal, Civil Division and Criminal Division Judgments – it is understood that these pages will also in due course link to judgments on the Smith Bernal site (see above)
• In the Queen’s Bench Division, Commercial Court Judgments, Daily Lists and Practice Directions, including the Guide to Commercial Court Practice
• In the Chancery Division, Companies Court Judgments, Patents Court Judgments – implemented with a detailed search facility – and Patents Court Practice Directions
• Official Referee’s Court Judgments and Practice Directions
• Divisional Court Judgments

Addendum:

Smith Bernal’s free archive site will be launched 9 February containing all Court of Appeal transcripts since April 1996. The free archive will provide the full texts of over 20,000 judgments. Running under the banner of Law21, judgments will be accessible by Case Name; Number; Court; Date of Judgment. Any user will be free to view/print transcripts as desired. There will be a 28 day delay in new material entering the public domain, but once in place, the site is freely accessible and free.