Definition
Ulterius concilium (Latin: "further argument" or "further counsel") is a procedural term appearing in early English common law reports. It denotes a request or allowance for additional argument before a court, typically signaling that a case was not yet ready for decision and that counsel required more time or opportunity to present their positions. The term appears in the older English reporters as a notation that the court invited or permitted further oral argument at a subsequent sitting.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in pre-19th century English case law will encounter this term as a marginal notation or inline phrase in the nominate reporters — the collections of cases decided before systematic law reporting was established. Its appearance signals that the decision being read is not the final disposition of the matter; a further report of the same case likely exists, either later in the same reporter or elsewhere. Failure to recognize this can lead a researcher to treat an interlocutory posture as a final ruling.
The term is most reliably tracked through the older English reporters, including Burrow's Reports and Wilson's Reports, the two series cited by Burrill. When working in those sources, researchers should treat an ulterius concilium notation as a prompt to search forward for subsequent argument or resolution. Indexing in nominate reporters is inconsistent, so the continuation of a case may not be immediately adjacent or cross-referenced.
The term largely disappears from practice and reporting after the systematization of English law reporting in the early 19th century. Researchers should not expect to find it in modern procedural sources, and its absence from later dictionaries and secondary literature reflects this obsolescence rather than any change in the underlying procedural concept (which survived under other terminology).
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the only substantive treatment recovered for this entry, and it is terse: "Further argument. A common term in the older reports." Burrill cites 1 Burr. 1020 and 2 Wils. 243 — references to Burrow's King's Bench Reports and Wilson's King's Bench Reports respectively — as illustrative instances. No further analysis is offered.
No other historical dictionary entry has been located for this term. Its narrow procedural function and confinement to a specific period of English legal history meant it did not attract elaboration even from comprehensive 19th-century lexicographers. The Burrill entry, brief as it is, appears to represent the full extent of formal dictionary treatment.
The term's Latin construction is transparent — ulterius meaning "further" and concilium meaning "counsel" or "argument" — which likely explains why compilers felt no need to expound upon it. What Burrill's entry does not address is the practical significance of the notation for reading the reporters, which is the more consequential gap for modern researchers.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to the English common law reporting tradition and has no recognized equivalent usage in American practice or reporting. Researchers in American colonial-era materials derived from English sources may encounter the phrase, but it carries no independent procedural meaning in any American jurisdiction.