The rules of procedure of the EU Courts - where arid rhymes with fertile

Procedural rules governing judicial proceedings at the European Union (EU) judiciary help organize how access to justice takes place. These rules cover a broad spectrum ranging from how the various EU Courts are organized (i.e. their composition, their deliberation procedures and rules about the use of languages, to the rights and obligations of lawyers, the methods of service and time-limits), plus a myriad of other rules governing the written and oral phases of a variety of legal remedies, each with their own specificities and stumbling blocks. Insiders tend to see these rules as a necessary evil, while many others perceive them as a particularly remote, arid, and boring facet of what must appear to all as an ocean - if not an abyss - of legislative rules determining much more of our daily professional and private lives than we could possibly be aware of. This context statement seeks not only to rectify such impressions, but to critically identify a number of non-legal aspects of my profoundly legal activity as a litigator and author of an article-by-article Commentary and other public works on the rules of procedure of the EU judiciary in Luxembourg. This critique explores the major influence that my professional career as an external counsel to many EU institutions and agencies has had upon both my public works and my successful legal practice. It reflects on how acquiring a particular approach to this work provided substantial motivation for my professional life. I elaborate on applying this reflection to my professional practice, which has included pleading over 350 cases at the EU Courts as well publishing various works on EU law. I have given more attention than anticipated to the importance of learning foreign languages - a professional key to other cultures above and beyond other requirements for being a litigator at the EU courts. I have also reflected more than expected on the benefits of lifelong learning. One core theme is the cross-fertilization of litigation and the publishing of legal articles. This has become a professional learning opportunity through a critical assessment of my published work in addition to an analysis of that work’s reviews. I explore (1) aspects of my major work, the Commentary, which need to be improved; (2) themes in my work which I have hitherto addressed from an exclusively legal point of view but which lend themselves to being enriched by ideas drawn from other disciplines; and (3) a number of conclusions, both for the present and the future, which I did not expect to reach when I started out on writing this critique of my own works.