Downloaded from the Humanities Digital Library http://www.humanities-digital-library.org Open Access books made available by the School of Advanced Study, University of London Press ***** Publication details: Legal Records at Risk: A strategy for safeguarding our legal heritage Clare Cowling http://humanities-digital-library.org/index.php/hdl/catalog/book/lrar DOI: 10.14296/919.9781911507154 ***** This edition published 2019 by UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PRESS SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED LEGAL STUDIES Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU, United Kingdom ISBN 978-1-911507-15-4 (PDF edition) This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. More information regarding CC licenses is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses Legal Records at Risk A strategy for safeguarding our legal heritage Clare Cowling THE LEGAL RECORDS AT RISK PROJECT Project patrons: William Twining, Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus, UCL and Avrom Sherr, Emeritus Professor, IALS Legal Records at Risk A strategy for safeguarding our legal heritage Clare Cowling Associate Research Fellow, IALS and Director, Legal Records at Risk project 2019 First published 2019 © Clare Cowling and contributors, 2019 ISBN 978-1-911507-14-7 (paperback edition) ISBN 978-1-911507-15-4 (PDF edition) DOI: 10.14296/919.9781911507154 University of London Press Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Charles Clore House 17 Russell Square London WC1B 5DR Email: [email protected] This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. 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Cover image: Official/shutterstock.com Contents iii Contents Foreword vii Acknowledgements ix Acronyms and abbreviations x Glossary of terms xii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Are private sector records more at risk than in the past? 4 1.1 The National Archives 2009 report on business archives 4 1.2 The British Records Association’s 2012 report on records at risk 4 1.3 The 2014 pilot project on legal records at risk 5 1.4 Implications of the above for legal records 5 Chapter 2: The project plan 6 2.1 Objectives 6 2.2 Scope 6 2.3 Assumptions 6 2.4 Methodology 7 2.5 Quality control 8 2.6 Resources and costs 8 2.7 Risks and issues 8 Chapter 3: Identifying legal records at risk 9 3.1 Evaluating current research resources 9 3.2 Defining just what we mean by ‘legal records at risk’ 9 3.3 Identifying categories of legal records not at risk 10 3.4 Identifying categories of legal records which are potentially at risk 12 Chapter 4: Engaging with stakeholders 14 4.1 Contact with legal institutions 14 4.2 Contact with archive repositories 15 4.3 Contact with archives/records management societies and pressure groups 15 4.4 Contact with research bodies, prominent legal researchers and legal practitioners 15 4.5 Stakeholder responses to publicity generated 15 4.6 Providing information and records management guidance 16 Chapter 5: LRAR seminars 17 5.1 The first LRAR seminar: ‘What do we mean by legal records at risk?’ 17 5.2 The second LRAR seminar: ‘Information as an asset: the business benefits to providers of legal services of preserving records’ 17 5.3 The third LRAR seminar: ‘Legal records, confidentiality and access: breaking down the barriers’ 18 5.4 The first LRAR seminar at CSLS: ‘Legal Records at Risk 1914–2014: the use of unpublished data in socio-legal research’ 19 5.5 The second LRAR seminar at CSLS ‘Use of unpublished documents in socio-legal research’ 19 5.6 Stakeholder group seminars 20 5.7 What did these seminars achieve? 20 Chapter 6: LRAR case studies 22 6.1 Case study 1: Records and recordkeeping in a legal publishing house 22 6.2 Case study 2: Alternative dispute resolution records held in the TfL Corporate Archives 22 6.3 Case study 3: The records of Chadwick Lawrence Solicitors 22 iv Legal Records at Risk: a strategy for protecting our legal heritage 6.4 Case study 4: Sub-project on domestic construction arbitration records 23 6.5 Case study 5: Records of the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) 23 6.6 Case study 6: Selected records of an intervened law firm in the Oxfordshire area 23 6.7 Case study 7: Census of providers of legal services in Oxfordshire, 1900–present day 24 6.9 Case study conclusions 24 Chapter 7: Seeking to develop a national strategy to rescue legal records 25 7.1 Investigating the feasibility of creating a Legal Archives Trust 25 7.2 Beginning to develop a proactive legal records rescue strategy 25 7.3 Standardising archiving procedures and processes 26 7.4 Liaising with TNA and other stakeholders to create a national private sector records rescue strategy 26 Chapter 8: Findings 28 8.1 Identifying recordkeeping risks and issues common to all private sector organisations 28 8.2 Identifying obstacles specific to rescuing legal records for posterity 31 8.3 Prioritising categories of legal records most at risk 36 8.4 Conclusion 38 Chapter 9: Solutions 39 9.1 The creation of a dedicated ‘legal records’ archives 39 9.2 Widening the collections focus of archives to include legal records 40 9.3 Facilitating the rescue of specific collections 40 9.4 Improving procedures for depositing records in archives 40 9.5 Seeking to widen research use of legal records 41 9.6 Creating a working model specifically to rescue and preserve legal records 41 Chapter 10: Conclusion 43 10.1 Summary of LRAR achievements to date 43 10.2 Did LRAR achieve its aims? 43 APPENDICES 44 Appendix I: Legal Records at Risk Advisory Panel and Executive Committee members 44 Appendix II: Legal records which are not at risk 45 1. Private sector legal institutions whose records are held in an archive repository 45 2. Law firms whose administrative records have been deposited in archives 60 3. Major accessions to repositories in 2017 relating to legal history 65 4. Personal and quasi-personal papers of individual legal practitioners and academic professionals held in archives 69 5. Keyword categories: legal records held in archive repositories 70 Appendix III: Private sector legal institutions whose records might be at risk 78 Appendix IV: Dedicated ‘legal’ archives in England and Wales 86 Appendix V: Institutions and individuals contacted by LRAR 88 Appendix VI: Publicising the project 92 Appendix VII: Ad hoc requests to LRAR for help/advice/guidance 93 Appendix VIII: LRAR information and records management guidance 95 Guideline 1: Current advice available to legal institutions on managing and disposing of records 96 Guideline 2: Advice to legal institutions on disposing of records 99 Guideline 3: Advice to legal institutions on identifying records of permanent research value 101 Guideline 4: Advice to legal institutions on confidentiality and research access to records 107 Guideline 5: Advice to legal institutions on the business benefits of depositing records in an archives 110 Contents v Guideline 6: Advice to legal institutions on the business benefits of an information and records management programme 113 Guideline 7: Advice to legal institutions on digital continuity and managing digital records 116 Appendix IX: Seminar papers and presentations 118 The first LRAR seminar: ‘What do we mean by legal records at risk?’, 10 December 2015 121 1. Project outline – aims, methodology and expected outcomes (William Twining and Clare Cowling) 121 2. Business Archives at Risk (Alex Ritchie) 122 3. Seminar handout: Legal Records at Risk (William Twining) 122 4. Round table discussion topic 1: What do we mean by ‘legal records at risk’? Are legal records now more at risk than in the past? If they are at risk, what are the contributory factors? 123 5. Round table discussion topic 2: What hitherto neglected/at risk categories of legal records would researchers use if the records were readily available? In what areas of research might these records be significant and useful? 123 6. Round table discussion topic 3: Given the current economic climate, how can the collection and care of legal records by archives and libraries be facilitated? 124 The second LRAR seminar: ‘Information as an asset: the business benefits to providers of legal services of preserving records’, 23 November 2016 125 1. Introductory notes to the seminar (Clare Cowling) 125 2. The value of preserving legal records: the historian’s perspective (Judy Slinn) 125 3. Hidden gems or skeletons in cupboards: making the most of business archives (Maria Sienkiewicz) 126 4. From ‘big boxes’ to digitisation: the business benefits of employing a professional archivist at a law firm (Emma Ferguson) 128 5. A model for the future? The work of the Pensions Archive Trust (PAT) (Jane Marshall) 130 6. Information pack attachment 1: current guidance available to the legal profession on managing and disposing of records 132 7. Information pack attachment II: Sample records of potential research value held by providers of legal services 133 8. Information pack attachment III: Success stories: private sector legal records which have been saved for research in archives 133 9. Information pack attachment IV: Not so successful stories – auctioning of legal records and other tales of woe… 136 10.