Pressure on the judiciary, Leveson and libel reform loomed large at 5RB's media event. Alex Novarese reports

The lot, it turns out, of a Queen's Bench Division (QBD) judge – and specialist judges in general – is not a happy one, according to the provocative keynote address at the highly-regarded 5RB Media and Entertainment Law Conference last week.

Mr Justice Tugendhat, the UK's lead judge for defamation, privacy and freedom of expression cases, made it brutally plain to around 200 delegates that the well-established system of appointing specialised judges for civil work is coming under mounting strain.

"It is already very difficult to find a specialist media judge to allocate to cases [of] freedom of expression," warned the High Court judge at the conference in central London. "And it is going to become more difficult."

Retirement at 70, the move to open applications for judicial positions, and the expanding field of specialist law – Tugendhat warned that a number of forces are choking off the supply of aspiring jurists with genuine specialisation, noting also the impending retirement of experienced media judges such as Mr Justice Eady. 

The message to the assembled throng of media barristers, solicitors and in-house counsel was that they may not be able to much longer rely on the dedicated judges that many see as a major element of the UK's appeal as a dispute resolution centre – certainly in the field of media and defamation.

For delegates expecting a discussion on the finer points of libel law, the Leveson Inquiry or the new Defamation Bill, it came as something of a jolt.

Tugendhat – who has become one of the most prominent judges in the UK thanks to delivering a string of high-profile libel and privacy rulings – warned that a lack of such judges would have major implications for the administration of civil justice.

Arguing that the provision of specialist judges was in the public interest given the responsibility and challenge of interpreting human rights law in media cases, Tugendhat commented: "In some cases, in my experience a non-specialist judge may take twice as long, or more, to decide a case as a specialist judge would take… And where the judge is not a specialist, counsel have to make submissions as to the law which assume no knowledge on the part of a judge."

In the view of Tugendhat, the situation is likely to get worse thanks to the increasing strain that current judges are being placed under and the fading lustre of judicial office for practitioners.

"The time constraints under which judges work have now become a major issue. High Court judges in the QBD now commonly work for 50 to 60 hours per week during term time, and they devote a significant part of the vacations to catching up with reserved judgments and other administrative work."

Tugendhat concluded a brisk speech with concerns that the end of the 'tap on the shoulder' model of judicial recruitment has diminished the vocational status of the Bench and made it harder to secure specific skills for the judiciary.

"As the recruiting posters put it: your country needs you. If no one with experience is willing to become a judge, there will be no specialist judges."

If this broadside provoked much gallows humour about the lack of the career appeal that Tugendhat's vision of an over-worked judiciary would have for practitioners, there was no shortage of material for media practitioners to get their teeth into at the conference.

The 5RB Conference – which Legal Week joined as a media partner – included as speakers Guardian News & Media's director of editorial legal services Gill Phillips and Hiscox head of TMT claims James Webster, alongside 5RB silks Desmond Browne, Mark Warby and Adrienne Page.

Topics covered included media regulation, evolving privacy issues and the realities of pursuing litigation against internet service providers. As expected, the Defamation Bill loomed large, with delegates expressing unease that reforms in the Bill intended to protect peer-reviewed articles in academic journals had gone further than expected.

There was also concern that the central thrust of the much-touted Bill will lead to substantial satellite litigation despite in many cases codifying common law. 

As Browne told delegates in one of the closing debates: "It is quite clear that [the Defamation Bill's new test of serious harm] has potential to give rise to arguments. It's a potential