Glasses, a succulent, a working pen.
What the next reader needs
The High Court does not need your eloquence. It needs the facts you found, the law you applied, and the path between them. A default that does not say what was served will return as a personality dispute. A sentence that does not say why that number, and not another, will return as an appeal dressed as indignation.
Write as if the person who lost will read it first. Then write as if a colleague on circuit will have to follow it without telephoning you.
A working method for the reserved page
• Facts first, in the order they happened, not in the order they irritated you.
• Name the section. A feeling about fairness is not a substitute for section 35, or Rule 12, or section 9 of the Children’s Act.
• Deal with the losing argument in a paragraph that the loser can recognise. That is courtesy, and it is also appeal-proofing.
• Dates, amounts, exhibit numbers. Particularity is kindness to your future self.
• If you reserved, give a date on which the reasons will be delivered, and keep it.
A short judgment that can be followed is a better judicial act than a long one that cannot. The roll already knows this. The appeal record will discover it later.
A note from Neelan Karikan. Reasons are how authority explains itself to the person who lost. If they cannot be followed, they were only power wearing a better font.