The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-02 00:00:00

LAW REPORTING,

A meeting of the bar was held yesterday in tinCoin's-
inn Hall, to consider the report of the committee on law re-
porting. The Attorney-General presided, and there was
a ver
of barristers. The report has been
already puolished,
arge
atte,ll44ll_

The CmultbtAN explained that on the 2d of ttecember
ht a
ov committeemight:uf not be devised for preparing and pub-
lishing appointed to consider whether some
approved plan
lase reports. That committee had endeavoured to
perform their duty conscientiously, and whatever opinion
ItSipr
might be entertained as to the plan recommended, the pro-
fession generally must feel indebted to them for the trouble
they had taken. t
I _ was no part of his (the Attorney-Gene-
ral's) duty to say a word on the report itself, or to prejudice
the opinions of any one present on the one way or the
other. He should be glad if the meeting could have been
held at a later period, so that more time might have been
afforded to the profession to consider the report before they
were called upon to vote upon it, but there was no option
between holding the meetirg now and leaving the whole
matter to stand over until after the long vacation. Under
these circumstances the committee thought it right that the
bar should be invited to meet that day to consider the report. '
Mr ADMILETT moved the first resolution :—" That the
report of the committee appointed at the general meeting of
the bar held in Lincoln's-inn Hall on Wednesday the 2d day
of Decendber, 1863, and the scheme recommended therein, be
adopted." He observed that the evils of the existing system
were the unnecessary number of cases reported, the unnetes-
sary length, the multiplication of reports of the same oases,
the delay:in publication,and the great expense entailed upon
the profession. The rented,' was to establish an organised
system of authorised reports, the present system of what was
called authorised reporting not having organisation in the
proper thug° of the term belongin,g_
to it. By the proposed
scheme the reports would Come out at regular intervals, pre-
pared by qualified reporters, and carefully edited by properly
qualified editors, at a fixed rate of subscription. It was a
question whether it would be better to have a system of re-
porting by reporters and editors appointed and paid by the
State—and of course under the control of the State, or
whether it would be better to leave the control in the hands
of the profession. But as they were not likely to obtain the
necessary funds from the Government for the purpose, if
they decided in favour of an official system it would become
a dead letter and be a bar to all improvement. It was
therefore necessary to determine in favour of a system
organised under the authority of the profession, and in that
case he could conceive no better plan than that recom-
mended by the committee, by which the reports would be
prepared and edited, as he had stated, by efficient reporters
and editors, members of the bar, and under the control of a
council which would have the power of revising the details
of the scheme as occasion might require. The question of
salaries had been anxiously considered by the committee,
who had been guided in fixing the amount by a desire
to secure as far as possible the services of the present staff
of authorised reporters in the several courts. It had also
been thought advisable to place the reporters and editors in
a certain degree independent of the chances of trade, by
assuring them one moiety of the salary agreed upon whether
the publication succeeded or not, the other moiety to depend
upon the commercial success of the undertaking. It would
doubtless be more agreeable to the reporters if the Govern-
ment would advance the first moiety of the salaries out of
the Consolidated Fund, and he did not despair of persuad-
ing Government to do so, and in that case there would be
no difficulty in finding a publisher who would undertake
the risk provided they could show a list of subscribers, say
to the extent of £lO,OOO, which he thought would cover the
entire expense of publication. The only other point was
the price at which the reports could be furnished to the