Incorporated Council of Law Reporting

The Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England & Wales, more commonly known as the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting (ICLR) is a registered charity based in London, England that publishes law reports of English law. The company is widely recognised as a reputable producer of reports (and the only 'official' source), which are used by students, academics, journalists, lawyers and judges across the country.

History

The ICLR was founded in 1865 by W. T. S. Daniel Q.C., and its first meeting took place on 25 February at Westminster Hall, then the home of the Court of King's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas and the Court of Chancery. The Council was incorporated under the Companies Act 1862 in 1870.

Largely working "as a private enterprise without state aid or interference," the Council "was not intended to be profit-making except in so far as it was necessary to make it self-supporting." Working on this principle, the Council applied in 1966 for registration to become an official charity under section 4 of the Charities Act 1960. Upon rejection by the Charity Commission the Council appealed under section 5(3) of the 1960 Act, an action granted by Justice Foster in the Chancery Division of the High Court. On appeal by the Inland Revenue to the Court of Appeal, who were joint defendants with the Attorney General, it was held that "the Council was established for exclusively charitable purposes since its purpose was to further the development and administration of the law and to make it known or accessible to all members of the community, which was a purpose beneficial to the community and of general public utility." In 1970, then, the ICLR was successfully registered as a charity in England and Wales.

Law report

Law reports or reporters are series of books that contain judicial opinions from a selection of case law decided by courts. When a particular judicial opinion is referenced, the law report series in which the opinion is printed will determine the case citation format.

The term reporter was originally used to refer to the individual persons who actually compile, edit, and publish such opinions. For example, the Reporter of Decisions for the U.S. Supreme Court is the person authorized to publish the Court's cases in the bound volumes of the United States Reports. In American English, reporter also denotes the books themselves. In the Commonwealth, these are described by the plural term law reports, the title that usually appears on the covers of the periodical parts and the individual volumes.

In common law countries, court opinions are legally binding under the rule of stare decisis. That rule requires a court to apply a legal principle that was set forth earlier by a court of a superior (sometimes, the same) jurisdiction dealing with a similar set of facts. Thus, the regular publication of such opinions is important so that everyone—lawyers, judges, and laymen can all find out what the law is, as declared by judges.

Law Reports

The Law Reports is the name of a series of law reports published by the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting.

The Council maintains that they are "'the most authoritative reports' and should always be 'cited in preference where there is a choice'." This series is now divided into four main sub-series: