By the court.

Per Curiamis a small review of law, history and argument, written by students and recent graduates. The name is taken from the Latin phrase used to mark a judicial opinion delivered by the bench acting collectively, unattributed to any single judge. ‘By the court’. Some of our pieces are signed by their authors. Others, in keeping with that convention, are not.

We publish across the breadth of the common law, including tort, contract, criminal, constitutional, equity and trusts, land, EU, competition, tax and media law. We also run pieces on legal history, the law’s relationship with artificial intelligence, and arguments about public life adjacent to but not quite inside the law.

We run two parallel things. The writings are essays. Case notes, doctrinal arguments, close readings, and historical pieces. The case library is our standing reference. Short notes on the cases we keep returning to, organised by area, with facts, issue, decision and significance.

What we are not

We are not lawyers, and nothing on this site constitutes legal advice. Where readers need that, they should consult a solicitor. We are not a law-school journal, and we do not aspire to that kind of formality. We are a review, and we prefer the essay to the article.

The editorial line

Two convictions guide what we publish. The first is that legal writing is at its best when it takes its subject seriously, whether that subject is a statute, a case, a chapter of history or a paragraph of an AI system’s output. The second is that doctrine, for its part, is at its best when it is examined closely and out loud.

We would rather publish a slow, careful essay than a fast, knowing one, and slower still than the news cycle that prompts it.

Get in touch

If you have read a piece and want to argue with it, write to us at editors@percuriam.co.uk. If you would like to write for us, see submissions.