Most of the essays in this collection have not been previously published, and those which have appeared previously have been re-written to make the collection read more coherently. It is centred upon the theme of the leading case, one where the judgment has established a long-lasting or far-reaching precedent in Common Law.
The author has selected a number of these cases in order to illustrate how the precedents established by the cases had little or nothing to do with the trials themselves.