Nothing dates faster than technology, sometimes disconcertingly quickly. So thank goodness for those who consciously resist change. With that thought in mind step forward the Attorney General’s Office, which, according to a parliamentary response, still uses pagers. (You may remember those rectangular devices people used to clip to their belts in the 1980s and 1990s.)

The department has three pagers distributed among its press office and has spent £1,861 on them since December 2010, while the Crown Prosecution Service has two pagers on a monthly rolling contract, costing the department £497.40 since May 2010.

Obiter hopes staff have also been issued with mobile phones so they can easily return any urgent pager messages. We also wonder if any other examples of obsolete communications technology have been spotted in the legal sector.

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