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16 January 2020 / Roger Smith
Issue: 7870 / Categories: Opinion
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‘Get online courts done’

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Roger Smith believes the devil is in the detail for  delivering online courts & justice

In the midst of recent momentous political times, the Conservative Party’s mantra ‘Get Brexit done’ won over a majority of voters. Richard Susskind’s latest book has its own intractable mantra: ‘Get online courts done’ (Online Courts and the Future of Justice, Oxford University Press).

Professor Susskind has always been a persuasive writer: now he has perfected a steamroller style that flattens opponents, doubters and waverers in a red hot torrent of argument. It is good fun. Very readable. And very human. Professor Susskind opens by admitting that he often jokes that he writes ‘the same book every four years’. There is a bit of truth in that: he is not alone in making that joke. And, his next book—for which I doubt that we will wait the full four years—should be rather different because the world is moving on from the binary question of whether online courts are good or bad to how and in what conditions they might be good or bad.

Positives

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