SKELETON ARGUMENTS: KEY POINTS AND ISSUES: A REMINDER
Periodically I reprise the links to online guidance on skeleton arguments. Here we have a series of links to posts and articles giving guidance on written submissions.
“Sir James Hunt has told us of the (unattributed) judicial reaction on receiving a 35 page document which was to the effect “This is not a skeleton, it’s a fat stiff’. Nor would attribution add to the impact of the remarks of a judge who received a manuscript document covered in coffee seals on the morning of trial and said it was “difficult to read, disgusting to touch and impossible to understand. It is worse than no skeleton at all”
HOW TO DRAFT SKELETON ARGUMENTS
“The excessively long and complex skeleton argument is a curse. You know who you are. My clerk writes your name in the black book, held in the archive of the Junior Ganymede Club.”
- Some of the best guidance going can be found on a Gray’s Inn website “Skeleton Arguments: A Practitioner’s Guide”.
- Skeleton arguments: get the font size right and the length correct: or it could cost you.
- Advocacy – the judge’s view: being persuasive “Convoluted arguments are sleeping pills on paper”.
- There is a special ring in hell for a certain type of advocate (and you know who you are).
JUDICIAL COMPLAINTS AND COMMENTS ABOUT SKELETON ARGUMENTS
There are plenty of reports of judges complaining about the length of “skeleton arguments”.
“The Skeleton Arguments were much too long to be of any immediate assistance. Parts of the Skeleton Arguments were devoted to speculation about the other side’s motives for taking a particular step … Such speculation is very unlikely to be of assistance or persuasive.”
- This is a sorry tale of woe: speculative skeleton arguments are of no assistance.
- Picking up bad citations: & skeleton arguments – still too long.
- Skeleton arguments: do them properly or you won’t get paid (the triquel).
- Skeleton arguments: if you don’t do them properly you won’t get paid.
- Drafting a skeleton or want to serve an additional skeleton argument? Then you had better read this
- Useless bundles; lengthy skeletons and judicial ire: The Court of Appeal rules inability to impose “old fashioned” sanctions.
- Skeleton Arguments too long & amount of documents “absurd”: a justifiable judicial complaint.
- Bundles too big, skeleton arguments too long – then the court may simply refuse to accept them: preparation for hearing goes off the tracks.
- “Unnecessary, unhelpful and unacceptable”: over-long skeleton arguments – again.
- More on lengthy skeleton arguments.
- Witness statements too short: skeleton argument too long.
EXAMPLES ONLINE
- Skeleton arguments more examples online: You can have Cotton if you can’t have silk.
- Drafting skeleton arguments and notices of appeal: examples online.
- Drafting skeleton arguments and notices of appeal: more examples online.
LATE SKELETONS AND SANCTIONS
“There has been a gross non-compliance with the rules in this case. It should be clearly understood (1) that the rules apply to all classes of litigation and there is no exception for commercial litigation and (2) that length obscures the points which are germane to the resolution of an appeal, rather than assisting in their determination.”
- Late skeleton arguments, adjournments and the overriding objective.
- Drafting a skeleton or want to serve an additional skeleton argument? Then you had better read this
- File a skeleton arguments – in is mandatory.
- Late skeleton arguments and late evidence: the government should do better
- Get bundles and skeleton arguments to court – or else.
I think it was Lord Diplock in Edwards v Yorke Motors [1982] 1 WLR 444, [1982] 1 All ER 1024
“The appellant’s case runs to no less than 39 1/2 single spaced foolscap pages of detailed argument involving very long citations from judgments of the two cases relied on as key cases, and references to more than a score of other English authorities none of which was of more than peripheral relevance”