About this site

I started a site and a Substack back in December 2020, during the second big national lockdown of the first Plague Year.

The original aim - as presaged by the domain name - was to think through (as one of the moderately nerdy members of the Bar of England and Wales) how the profession could function in a new, remote-first world: particularly since many of us were understandably wedded to paper bundles and since remote hearings were new, strange, and unreliable.

We live in a different world now. Remote is normal, for us all. PDF bundling is no longer a weird and alien concept (although many still get it wrong, may their multiple nested emails be cursed for ever). And the idea of the "remote access bar" as something worth thinking about specifically seems rather outdated.

Added to which, for personal reasons I've struggled to write with any regularity since early 2022. Or, indeed, at all.

So it's time for a change. And a new domain name. More boring, but perhaps more professionally useful.

This site is the result. No longer two parallel sites, one for content and the other for newsletters. Now just the one, but still sending out new content as and if and when I produce it to anyone who wants it emailed to them.

Welcome to the new home.

A note on content

One of the joys of the independent Bar is that we own what we say and what we do.

So it’s important to stress that everything written here is my own view. It shouldn’t be taken as indicating what Outer Temple thinks, or what stance might be taken on an issue by any of its other members.

Put more simply: what's here are my words, and my responsibility. No-one else's.