When giving judgment in the context of an interim application or case management decision, the following principles should be borne in mind to ensure that adequate reasons for the decision are given. (1) A judgment or ruling given in an applications list such as the Friday Commercial Court list, or at a case management hearing where there might be a multiplicity of issues to address in a limited time, is unlikely to be, and need not be, a polished product like a reserved judgment. (2) What is required will depend on the context. However, summaries of background facts and uncontroversial legal principles might be omitted in appropriate cases, or at least significantly trimmed. If a judge is able to do so, preparation of notes in advance will assist him or her to include the minimum required to make the judgment understandable. If essential, cross-references to skeleton arguments or other documents can be made, although it is preferable for these to be “read in” to the transcript, or for the approved transcript to include the information referred to. (3) The best approach is to identify the issue or issues, refer to any relevant evidence (again by cross-reference if needed) and then give the core reasons for the judge’s conclusions. Again, the issues and relevant evidence might well be capable of being noted in advance. If the judge has formed a provisional view, it might also be possible to reflect this in a tentative draft, but that will of course require careful review in the light of oral argument. If necessary, the judge should rise (or send the parties out) to allow enough time for that review. This applied whatever the time pressure might be. Even 10 minutes might make all the difference. Alternatively, if necessary and provided that the judge is sure as to the outcome, a decision could be announced with reasons to follow. In other cases judgment might have to be reserved, however unpalatable that was. (4) As a rule of thumb, it will usually be more important in practice to focus on the reasons why the losing party’s case is being rejected rather than the (positive) attractions of the winning party’s case. This approach is not only transparently fair and should minimise the chance of an appeal being made, or at least permission to appeal being granted, but it also helps to ensure rigour. Accepting the winning party’s arguments “for the reasons they give” (or equivalent) will usually not suffice without saying something specific about the losing party’s case. (5) Importantly, counsel should immediately point out if they consider that reasoning is inadequate. A failure to do so could not prevent an appeal being made, but it is conduct that might be taken into account by the appellate court in determining the appropriate order for costs, since raising the issue might have resulted in an unnecessary appeal being avoided. (6) A judge also has scope to perfect a transcript of a judgment when he or she is asked to approve it. Ex post facto justifications are of course not appropriate, but amendments are possible to ensure that the approved transcript clearly conveys what the judge intended to say, in a way that is understandable both to the parties and to an appeal court. That is not limited to correcting obvious errors or infelicities. For example, the content of cross-references that had not been read in to the transcript can be expanded, and reasoning can be clarified. The structure, or order in which text appeared, can also be altered if required to improve clarity. If further reasoning was in the judge’s mind but was omitted in error, a post-script can be added explaining that (para 32).