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Professional briefing Book reviews
Blackstone’s Employment
Law Practice: 4th edition
(Ed) John Bowers
and others
PUBLISHER: BLACKSTONE
ISBN: 0 19 955661 8
PRICE: £69.95
A perennial complaint of the hard
pressed employment practitioner is
the need to lug around a variety of
reference books and materials when
attending hearings.
For many reasons, not least the
practitioner’s back, the fourth edition
of Blackstone’s Employment Law Practice
will prove a valuable resource to
anyone, whether legally qualified or
not, who advises and represents
clients on employment-related issues.
In one portable volume the authors
have produced a practical and clearly
set out guide to raising and fighting
claims in the employment tribunals
and higher courts.
The book covers almost everything
one needs to know about practice and
procedure in the employment
tribunal and the employment appeal
tribunal, and ventures into more
esoteric areas including higher
(English) court procedures and
references to the European Court of
Justice, among others. Of particular
practical use are the sections dealing
with compromise agreements and the
tax treatment of termination
This text provides both the annotated
statute and the criminal procedure
rules. The fact that the text is in its
eighth edition is testament to the
payments, including an example style
compromise agreement with drafting
notes. Practical guidance is also
included in relation to the issues that
frequently arise in tribunal hearings
in relation to calculation of awards
and assessment of damages.
Practitioners will also benefit from
the appendices which include extracts
from selected legislation, practice
directions, codes of practice,
summaries of the main cases
frequently referred to in hearings
and, more unusually,
financial information
(for example motoring
costs guides) that will
assist in calculating
loss at hearing.
While the majority of
the text is concerned with
tribunal and other courts’
procedures (including remedies
available), the book also addresses
the substantive law in the areas most
likely to arise at tribunal, including
dismissal, redundancy,
discrimination, equal pay, unlawful
deductions and the transfer of
undertakings. The authors do not
claim to cover the substantive law in
great detail, but these sections
contain a useful summary of the
main legal and practical issues.
Tolley’s Employment Law
Handbook, currently in its 22nd
edition, takes the opposite
approach to Blackstone’s, and
Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995: 8th edition
Dr Robert Shiels
and others
PUBLISHER: W GREEN
ISBN: 0 414 01759 7
PRICE: £82
www.lawscotjobs.co.uk
scholarly, concise and up-to-date
annotations undertaken by four
renowned experts in the field of
criminal law.
Editions of annotated statutes are
generally seen as not being a
substitute for textbooks on the chosen
area. While this is equally true in
criminal procedure, the annotations to
this statute are so clear and readable
that they provide an excellent
grounding for understanding the
Suggestions
for future
books
The Book Review
Editor is David J
Dickson. Books for
review should be sent
c/o The Law Society
of Scotland, 26
Drumsheugh Gardens,
Edinburgh EH3 7YR
is primarily designed as a reference
book dealing with the substantive
law, rather than a guide for
practitioners in the tribunal.
Tolley’s is stronger on black letter
law, though in practice, for the upto-date
legal position, practitioners
are likely to refer to Harvey on
Industrial Relations & Employment
Law, or IDS online.
Where appropriate, Blackstone’s
highlights the differences in legislation
between Scotland and England,
though less attention is paid to the
differences in the practice of tribunals
north and south of the border in
respect of matters including the use of
witness statements (rare in Scotland
but common practice elsewhere), the
order of closing submissions, and the
provision of skeleton arguments
before the EAT (again not normal
practice in Scotland).
The law is up to date as at January
2009. In an area of law that is subject
to as frequent change as employment
law, such volumes can quickly become
out of date. It is promised that the
book will be updated annually.
In summary, although the book
would have been stronger if it had
cross-referenced the main text with
the relevant cases summarised in the
appendices, it is well presented and
thorough, and will prove a useful aid
to tribunal practitioners.
Donald MacKinnon, Law at Work
statute and its increasing number of
sections (eight pieces of new
legislation are taken into account in
this edition) and their complexity.
We were all taught that anyone
appearing in court ought to have with
them, any statute they intend to refer
to. This text is an absolute must for
anyone who practises before the
criminal courts.
David J Dickson
December 09 theJournal / 51