Today the law lords — or the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords — morph into the Supreme Court for the UK. It is a landmark in British legal history.

Its significance lies in that it will provide greater clarity in our constitutional arrangements by further separating the judiciary from the legislature. But for a hard-nosed fraud lawyer like Clive Zietman, head of commercial litigation at Stewarts Law, it signifies little more than a “change of the label”.

“Cosmetically it’s a good thing,” he says, “and for foreign clients it helps to simplify the image of the UK legal system. But it’s not an epoch-making event.”

Certainly no one expects an immediate change in the character of the court. As Roger Smith, director of Justice, observes: “It would be hard to imagine a Supreme Court being any more independent than the House of Lords was under Lord Bingham of Cornhill.”

Christopher Style, QC, of Linklaters, agrees. “I don’t think their lordships will feel any more independent — they have never hesitated to make their views clear in the past.”

Nevertheless, over time there may be a change in style if not, perhaps, in substance. Malcolm Davis-White, QC, vice-chairman of the Chancery Bar Association, says: “They have the power to change their own procedures and they may become more proactive simply because of the environment in which they are working.”

The attitude of the highest appellate court in the land to the activities of the City lawyer has been, it must be said, ambivalent in recent years. Some of its members, it is rumoured, would have preferred to have dropped commercial work from its remit in order to focus on the big constitutional and public law issues. For example, Lindsay Marr, chairman of the litigation committee of the City of London Law Society, reports that it was not consulted on the move and it may be significant — or at least indicative — that while the Supreme Court’s website features some examples of the work done at this level none are commercial.

That said, relatively few commercial cases reach the dizzy heights of the Lords because, as Davis-White points out, they tend to turn on the specific facts of the case rather than being about issues of more general public interest. “Most practitioners never take a case to this level and I’ve only done so once and that was 20 years ago,” Zietman says.

Moreover, there is a view in some quarters that when it comes to selling English (or indeed British) law and justice to the world the House of Lords-Supreme Court plays a only small part. “From a commercial standpoint the reputation of English law and jurisdiction rests on far more than whether the House of Lords or the Supreme Court is the final arbiter on appeal,” Danny Gowan, senior partner of Davies Arnold Cooper, says. “A large proportion of City disputes are dealt with by way of arbitration which allows only very limited recourse to the courts. Indeed, the finality of decision and privacy of proceedings is often the basis upon which arbitration is chosen over the jurisdiction of the courts.”

The irony is, however, that on its very last day in its old guise as the House of Lords the court was dealing with a very important matter of accountants’ negligence. And taxation matters of crucial significance often end up at this level.

So in terms of the standing of the new Supreme Court — from a City perspective — it is essential that (even if only rarely) it continues to deal with commercial matters As Michael Smyth, head of public policy of Clifford Chance, says: “It is most important for City lawyers that the Supreme Court continues to be the final court for hearing appeals. Lord Phillips [of Worth Matravers, the President] was right to say that everyone is entitled to three bites of the cherry.”

That third bite of the cherry can now be taken in surroundings that are much more convenient and technologically friendly than its predecessor. But (in a characteristic British way) this is dismissed by some as mere frippery. What matters is the calibre of the intelligence at work and being “thorough, fair and getting the answer right”, says Style.

This is down to the quality within the court’s membership. And here, it must be said, City lawyers are unstinting in their praise of what they see.

“The Court of Appeal is regarded as a fallible court,” Murray Rosen, QC, of Herbert Smith, says. “It has to deal with a vast amount of work and the burden is back-breaking. And while the quality of judiciary in the Court of Appeal is high it is not invariably so. So when you need a definitive answer it is good to have the Supreme Court in the background as a last resort. They are the absolute top dogs intellectually and collectively they are the most amazing body of intelligence.”

With their terrifying intellects but relatively dressed-down (for justices) appearance the members of the Supreme Court will be on public display in the new premises from next week. I am told it has a great café for visitors.

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