Definition
In English practice, paper days are designated days within a court term set aside for the court to hear or argue cases listed on the "paper" — that is, the official schedule or docket of causes entered for argument. Each major court maintained its own paper, and paper days were the sessions dedicated to working through that list.
The term is essentially procedural and calendaring in nature: it describes the mechanism by which English courts organized their argumentation schedule during term-time, ensuring that cases set down for argument were heard in an orderly, predictable sequence.
Why It Matters in Research
Paper days are an artifact of pre-reform English court procedure and appear almost exclusively in historical sources describing practice in the English superior courts before the consolidation reforms of the nineteenth century. Researchers encountering the term in early American treatises or colonial-era materials should understand it as a direct borrowing from English practice — one that did not take institutional root in American courts in any standardized form.
The primary research trap is anachronism: a researcher reading nineteenth-century American or English pleading manuals may encounter "paper days" alongside terms like "motion days" or "rule days" and assume equivalence. They are related but not identical. Paper days were specifically tied to the formal papers or dockets of causes listed for argument; motion days or rule days addressed interlocutory motions and procedural orders. Conflating these can distort understanding of when and how litigants were required to appear or act.
For researchers working in the Law Mind corpus on English procedural history, Tidd's Practice (cited in Burrill) is a critical primary source. Tidd's Pr. 504 is the foundational reference for this term and situates paper days within the broader architecture of term-time practice. Any research into English common law procedure, the rhythm of legal terms, or the history of court scheduling should treat Tidd as an anchor text.
The term is unlikely to appear in post-Judicature Acts materials (post-1873–1875), as the consolidated Supreme Court of Judicature reorganized English court procedure substantially. Researchers finding the term in sources after that period should investigate whether the author is using historical or archaic terminology.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's and Burrill's agree on the essential meaning: paper days are days in term-time appointed for hearings or arguments on cases listed in the court's paper. There is no material divergence between the two sources.
Burrill adds the useful precision that these were days "for going through the paper of causes entered for argument," which clarifies that the paper was an ordered list, and the days were scheduled methodically to work through it. This is consistent with the formalized, sequential nature of English term-time practice.
Black's briefly notes the ecclesiastical dimension — "ecclesiastical power of the pope" — which appears to be a stray fragment from an adjacent entry in the original source and has no bearing on the procedural meaning of paper days. Researchers should disregard that phrase as a typographical artifact of historical dictionary compilation.
Neither dictionary provides substantial doctrinal content beyond the procedural definition, which is appropriate: paper days is a calendaring term, not a substantive legal doctrine. Neither source addresses the term's disappearance following English procedural reform, which is the most important historical note for modern researchers.
Jurisdictional Note
Paper days were a feature of English court practice and did not become a standardized term in American courts. American jurisdictions developed their own calendaring and docket management conventions. The term may appear in early American legal materials that borrowed heavily from English practice, but it carries no operative legal meaning in any current American jurisdiction.