Janna Purdie emphasises the increasing importance of keeping skeleton arguments in check
The clue is in the name. A skeleton argument is a written document provided to the court in advance of the hearing which summarises the issues to be addressed and the authorities to be relied upon. The purpose is to provide a platform for the advocate to make the party's case during oral submissions, ie the bare bones of the case to which the advocate will add flesh during submissions. The CPR clearly sets out what is required for the purposes of a skeleton argument and many practitioners comply with those provisions. However, some simply chose to ignore them and produce lengthy skeletons which fail to focus on the issues the court is required to determine.
The Court of Appeal has focused on the length of skeleton arguments in the past. Examples can be seen in Tombstone v Raja [2008] EWCA Civ 1444, where the skeleton argument for one party ran to 110 pages, in Midgulf v Groupe Chimique Tunisien [2010] EWCA Civ 66 where Lord Justice Toulson took issue with the skeletons
