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Dublin BIALL blog

BIALL is buzzing. Whether this is purely because it’s in the fine city of Dublin is unclear, but the location and the serendipitous timing of the event is adding to the heady atmosphere of legal and political discussion.

Arriving a day before Ireland’s crucial Lisbon Treaty Referendum, we were treated to the bizarre spectacle of “yes” and “no” vote posters at literally every lamppost our taxi passed on the way from the airport. Though our cabbie’s only contribution to the conversation was his trenchant defence of his apparent fondness of sandals with socks, debate on the issue at large is fevered. Despite most of the mainstream parties strongly advocating a “yes” in the constitutionally-required ballot, the public seems less clear in its position and at the time of writing the result is unknown.

Delegates at the conference, however – both British and Irish – are erring on the side of the Irish government; a stance we at Justis Publishing are happy to embrace, given our commitment to the all-new Caselex and our full Justis EU package, in which great interest has been shown by the steady stream of visitors to our stand, whose thirst for otherwise non-existent EU law-related precedent could be quenched by signing up.

But that, of course, is not all that’s been keeping our demonstrators busy. The happy timing of our Irish Reports double-whammy has created a stir from librarians from both sides of the Irish Sea. With 80 years’ worth of pre-independence reporting soon to be uploaded, cases on the database will provide weighty precedent not just for practitioners in the Republic but also for those in the North, as well as in England and Wales. With court-ready printable PDFs to boot, the expanded offering is being seen as a Must Have by many here who have been shown the growing archive.

The JustCite message too is becoming ever louder and clearer, tying in as it does with one of the numerous informative and entertaining seminars. Information guru Lesley Robinson’s first session dealt with turning “information into knowledge”. More than a semantic talking point, Lesley’s eloquent dispatch focused on a holistic process involving people, data and tools – all of which gave us a pertinent point of reference later for introducing our nifty citator to those who had attended the talk.

The bell for lunch must bring this address to a close, so I shall sign off with the wish that if you couldn’t make it to this year’s conference, we might see you next year in Manchester, by which time the outcome of the referendum will be known and anyone who’s already started reading the treaty itself might just about have finished it.

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