Civil justice has been undergoing a massive transformation. There have been big changes in the management of judicial business; the Human Rights Act 1988 has had a pervasive impact; the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 has effected many changes - notably, the prospective transfer of the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords to a new Supreme Court. Against this backcloth of radical change, this book looks at the recent history and the present-day operation of the civil division of the Court of Appeal - a court that, despite its pivotal position, has attracted surprisingly little scholarly attention. It examines the impact of the permission to appeal requirements, and the way in which applications - particularly those by litigants in person - are handled; it looks at the working methods of the Lords Justices and at the leadership of the Court by recent Masters of the Rolls; it considers the relationship between the Court and the House of Lords - looking at high-profile cases in which the Court has been reversed by the Lords. Notwithstanding the impending arrival of the Supreme Court, it concludes that 'the Court of Appeal will remain firmly in place, occupying its crucial position as, to all intents and purposes, the court of last resort-indeed, a supreme court-for most civil appellants.'

1 Introduction
The Research Agenda
A Note on Methodology
Plan of the Book
Annex A: Data Collected for Each Case in the Data-Set
Annex B: Researchers' Informal Aide-Mémoire for the Conduct of Semi-Structured Interviews With Judges in the Court of Appeal
2 The Nature of the Appellate Process
Appeals in Historical Perspective
Species of Appeal
The Rationale of English Civil Appeals
Appeal and the Trial Process
3 Origins and Development of the Court of Appeal
The Position Before 1875
A New Home for the New Court
Rights of Appeal: From Hanworth to Evershed
A Transatlantic Lesson? Slow Moves Towards Modernisation Since the 1960s
Insights from Within
The Woolf Reforms
A View from the 1880s-Plus Ça Change?
4 New Public Management in the Court of Appeal:
The Woolf and Bowman Reforms
Thatcherism and the New Public Management
Thatcherism Catches Up with the Judiciary
New Public Management and the Courts-The Rising Tide
The Woolf Reports on Civil Justice
The Court of Appeal: From Woolf to Bowman
Implementing Woolf and Bowman: The Tanfern Direction
Judges as Case Managers?
5 A Right of Appeal?
The New Procedure in Outline
The Requirement for Permission to Appeal
Dealing With an Application for Permission to Appeal
Second Appeals
Restrictions on Appeals about Case Management
Appeals from Specialist Tribunals
Reform of Permission to Appeal
Alternative Dispute Resolution: Mediation, Costs, and Lower Courts
After Permission to Appeal has been Granted: Review or Rehearing?
The Outcome of an Appeal
6 The Court of Appeal at Work-Some Facts and Figures
The Offi cial Statistics
Permission to Appeal: The Procedure in Practice
The Human Rights Act 1998
Where was PTA Applied for?
Represented and Unrepresented Applicants
Time Taken for Applications to be Processed
Determination on the Papers, and Oral Hearings
Judicial Time Taken to Hear PTA Applications
Permission to Appeal Granted by the Court Below
The Journey of an Application: an Applicant's Eye View of the Court of Appeal
7 The Judges
Leading the Court: Masters of the Rolls
The Court Today
Who Goes Upstairs?
Annex A: Masters of the Rolls, 1873-2006
Annex B: The Judges of the Court of Appeal(Civil Division)
8 Judgments
Individuality and Collegiality
Judgments: Single, Multiple or Composite
Prolixity of Judgments
9 Unrepresented Applicants
A Litigant's View
The Taylor v Lawrence Effect
The Case for Abolition of the Right to an Oral Hearing in Seeking Permission to Appeal
10 Who has the Last Word? the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords
Review and Supervision
Appeals in the Abstract
Appealing to the Lords
The Near-Extinction of Orally Argued Petitions for Leave
The Final Court of Appeal in Parliament
11 Reversal by the Lords: Polanski, Porter, Roma, and Begum
Polanski v Vanity Fair
Appeal and Audit-The Dame Shirley Porter Case
The Roma at Prague Airport
Begum: Another Approach to Discrimination and Human Rights
12 The Court in the Twenty-first Century-Some Reflections

“Drewry, Blom-Cooper and Blake's stimulating analysis should be read by anyone interested in the business of the most important court in our legal system.” –  David Pannick Q.C., Public Law

“This is an invaluable work both of reference and scholarship...This book fills a long-standing lacuna most obvious to the scholars of adjudication and the English legal system..” –  Carla Crifo, Civil Justice Quarterly, Vol 27, Issue 1

“As well as collecting important information on the history, personnel and case-load of the court, the book contains a discussion of important policy issues such as the nature of appeal, case management and working methods in appellate courts. The book's obvious first audience is academic but practitioners before the Court of Appeal would be well-advised to dip into it to appreciate the context of their work. The book is leavened with shrewd, and sometimes amusing, observations and is very nicely produced.” –  Ross Cranston QC, Professor of Law at LSE,