Book Review: English Private Law edited by Peter Birks

Abstract

The English common law is becoming increasingly difficult to manage. There are several contributory reasons. First, the number of English law reports has, for various reasons, increased vastly. The All England Law Reports and the Lloyd's Law Reports can now be found in several flavours each. Specialist law reports are bountiful. Secondly, the ease and efficiency with which primary case materials (of the United Kingdom as well as other significant Commonwealth countries) can be readily made available for global online electronic access has led to an explosion of non-pre-selected and unedited case authorities available to counsel for use in arguments in court. Notable free-access websites include http://www.bailii.org/ (United Kingdom), http://www.austlii.edu.au (Australia), http://www.canlii.org (Canada), and http://www.hklii.org (Hong Kong).