Law digest: Civil litigation

(i) Where the subject-matter of an application is governed by rules in the
CPR, it should be dealt with by the court in accordance with the CPR and not by exercising the court’s inherent jurisdiction. (ii) Practitioners are advised to note the risk of the court’s negative reaction to unnecessarily long written submissions. Skeleton arguments should not be prepared as verbatim scripts to be read out. Good skeleton arguments provide an agenda for the hearing, a summary of the main points, propositions and arguments to be developed orally, a useful way of noting citations and references, a convenient place for making cross references, a time-saving means of avoiding unnecessary dictation to the court and laborious and pointless note-taking by the court. They are aids to oral advocacy, not written briefs to be used as substitutes for oral advocacy (per Lord Justice Mummery at [125]–[128]).