Reviews

Book review: Law and the Whirligig of Time

Law and the Whirligig of Time

Author: Sir Stephen Sedley
Publisher: Hart Publishing
ISBN: 9781509917099

This is a rich collection of historical essays, learned articles, speeches and potted biographies. It is only at the end that we discover that as a young law student, the author/former Lord Justice of Appeal was the folk music critic for Tribune and once played an impromptu session with Bob Dylan at the Troubadour. It is worth noting this, when one reads forward, that at least one judge was never out of touch with the zeitgeist.

‘The whirligigs of time’ is the phrase from Twelfth Night appropriately first uttered in an Inn of Court. In a lecture at Edinburgh Sir Stephen pointed out the speed at which our notion of human rights has changed, eg how have we gone in a generation from seeing same gender sex as a sin to something protected by the human right of privacy? ‘It is the revenge which time is for ever taking on things we imagine to be timeless’.

Having been a pioneer of modern administrative law while at the Bar and having spent 19 years on the bench, the pieces inevitably dwell on how the law has changed and on how judges fit into the constitutional arrangement. He deals with the media-fed perception that judges are ‘unaccountable’. Here as elsewhere he points his guns towards the mischief caused by the illiberal parts of the media – one of Sir Stephen’s attributes being an encyclopaedic memory of all the silly things which have been printed over the years. ‘I do not imagine that the unelected-and-unaccountable critics want judges who have to be voted in or can be voted out.’ A judge who can be removed by government or the electorate ‘lacks the central attribute of judicial office, independence’.

The ‘People’ section includes his Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entries on Lords Scarman, Bingham and Diplock, and his obituary of Lord Denning. Magisterial, frank and unafraid to debunk some much-loved misconceptions about some of these men, they are excellent introductions to some important legal lives. Almost the last passage in the book is his advice to Oxford law students: ‘Possibly the hardest thing to achieve in legal practice is losing a case well... I mean leaving court knowing that you couldn’t have done more.’

Perhaps in the future we shall hear something of those students. Meanwhile we look forward to hearing more, in his ostensible retirement, from Sir Stephen.

Reviewer: David Wurtzel

Book review: Missing

Missing
Author: James Stewart
Publisher: Melrose Books (2018)
ISBN: 9781912333936

Missing, by retired judge James Stewart QC, reads like an episode of Midsomer Murders updated for the 21st century; this is no bad thing. There is a straightforward plot with the disappearance of a key character, as one might anticipate from a book with this title. It does not matter that the characters are caricatures, fleshed out with just enough detail that is required for their roles. While there is no deep analysis of personality, preconceptions or motive, this is not necessary in a short but gripping read that keeps one guessing to the very end. Further, the brief characterisation is deftly done, and conjures up possible inhabitants of a modern-day sleepy village in North Yorkshire effortlessly.

There are some fond and lyrical observations about the region, and about cricket, which appear entirely incidental to the action. While no doubt reflecting the pride and affection of the writer for his home, they were also slightly distracting. This did not stop the book from being a real page turner. Reading this at court, such is the life of a busy barrister, I groaned when it was time for the start of each day, so engrossed did I become with the narrative. The trial is covered in all the detail that only a barrister or judge would include – or want to read – and this certainly helps the tension mount. One wants to know the outcome and what the jury decides.

The ending when it came was unexpected and included the promised twist. There were lots of small questions that remained unanswered but none that troubled one unduly when justice was clearly done. More unexpected was the pondering of the justice system and the role of juries at the end of the book. It would have been better placed as a spoken observation of a character on screen (hence, a cracking modern-day version of Midsomer Murders or something longer than needs to be seen on screen); as it was it jarred slightly in a novel where what the characters think is never really explored. Nonetheless, overall, definitely worth reading.

Reviewer: Melissa Coutinho

Book review: Blind Defence

Blind Defence
Author: John Fairfax
Publisher: Little, Brown (2018)
ISBN: 9781408708750

This is a long book – more than 300 pages – and having invested time in reading it, one is predisposed to want this to be well spent. The protagonist rivals Morse, Tennison or Sherlock in having unexpected characteristics that draws you in. A defence barrister, who has himself served a term of imprisonment, he presents as a flawed hero and is the underdog the reader is silently rooting for. Following in the best traditions of crime drama, clues, the characters’ background and histories are revealed bit by bit to form a veritable jigsaw.

Optioned for television, it is easy to see how this beautifully written book by William Brodrick (who practised as a barrister before writing full time; Fairfax is his pen name), would transfer to screen sympathetically. There is vivid imagery to exploit; houseboats, East End gangsters, organised-crime lords, dark alleys, sudden deaths and fishermen all feature. With political strands being interwoven into the topic of law, different social classes, and an unspoken commentary thereof featuring, it ticked all the boxes one has come to expect with this type of novel.

However, it also appeared to be something of a Harry Potter novel; the multiple strands and little details – which one felt sure should amount to a startling revelation – are never fully explored. I would not be surprised that this second book featuring the double act of De Vere (solicitor) and Benson (counsel), will be followed by a third, and possibly more books, with additional disclosures. Ultimately, I was left slightly annoyed and cheated that some of the detail of the clever plot was not well explained. I still do not understand the significance of an infamous cigarette butt (on which much turns inexplicably), despite going back to see if I have missed something! That said, when the next book comes out, will I read it? Just try and stop me. And when this is on television, I may shout at the screen occasionally – but I will enjoy doing so.

Reviewer: Melissa Coutinho

Book review: Under the Wig

Under the Wig: a Lawyer’s Stories of Murder, Guilt and Innocence
Author: William Clegg QC
Publisher: Canbury Press (2018)
ISBN: 9781912454082

The great virtue of this utterly compelling book is that Bill Clegg QC tells it as it is. Now, in the terrible chaos engulfing a great profession and on his way to the top. A life of a top criminal advocate within a profession he loves and adorns, with many high profile cases well summarised. Written for the interested non-lawyer, it has an excellent structure of career progression and specific cases combined together, chapter by chapter. It reads like the man: direct, clear, properly combative, reasonable and devoid of artificial rhetorical.

Missing are detailed pen portraits of fellow advocates, but that would have missed the point of a book which sets out unambiguously to demystify and to inform. It will serve equally well for any would-be lawyers, who, like the author and many of us, did not have any inside legal connections before we began. Absorb with joy the advice on how to appeal to a jury and remember it. Cherish equally how to win the trust of a judge.

So of course the author tackles the questions advocates are always asked and the byzantine ways leading us from eating dinners, slogging through pupillage, keeping heads above water in practice to eventually, for the chosen, Silk. His range of high profile cases include Jill Dando’s terrible killing, the case of Michael Stone, War Crimes in the Balkans, Private Lee Clegg and the Phone Hacking trial. But it is his analysis and strictures on the ‘Trying times for Legal Aid’ which will resonate with so many readers. The insider’s view, persuasive for its obvious truths. Just a glimpse:

‘If you believe, as I do that everyone is entitled to a fair trial, it follows that every individual must have access to proper legal representation regardless of their financial status. Legal aid was designed precisely to do just that… For decades, the system worked well… the barristers defending [legal aid defendants] earned a fee that was independently assessed to be fair and reasonable full. This is no longer the case.’

And then all the reasons: a decade of government cuts… for lawyers have fallen out of favour with the Treasury. And other woes: court staffing has been reduced and the budget for maintaining the courts has fallen. Stories of leaking roofs, toilets that do not work and heating and air conditioning systems that are broken.

‘There is a general feeling of squalor that you might expect in a developing country (but curiously do not find there, because respect for the rule of law demands that the courts are properly maintained). Here, in one of the largest economies in Europe, that does not appear to be the case.’

There is much more to justify his conclusion: it is absolutely no exaggeration to say that the profession is in crisis. So it is and we should shout that from the rooftops. And the more that leading lawyers beat that drum, the better chance of reform. What would Jeremy Bentham make of our shoddy slide into mediocrity by default and wilful underfunding!

Now all of that may just suggest a faint partiality by your reviewer. Perish the thought. My independent verdict is that I have never read a more accurate portrayal of our profession. Buy it now.

Reviewer: Nigel Pascoe QC

Book review: An Illustrated History of Gray’s Inn

An Illustrated History of Gray’s Inn
Authors: David Barnard and Timothy Shuttleworth
Publisher: The Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn
ISBN: 9781527219076

It is more than 70 years since Francis Cowper’s magisterial A Prospect of Gray’s Inn was published and more than 40 years since it was revised. Small wonder then that the Graya Board thought that the time had come for a fresh history which, by chronicling the Inn’s past and describing its present might assist in guaranteeing its future. Albeit it was only recently that the Inn’s traditional and exclusive role in calling its students to the Bar and conferring upon them in consequence the right to practice as barristers was enshrined in statute, they nonetheless need to be vigilant to fend off critics who question the justification for such mediaeval bodies to survive in modern times.

This handsomely produced volume takes the reader through the centuries at an educated canter. Replete with well-chosen illustrations it has the feel of a classic coffee table book, though it will no doubt be enjoyed by readers enjoying more stimulating liquid after a hard day in court or at the computer. Many of them may well be professional denizens of the Inn itself, which could not have happened before the 1970s, when for the first-time chambers were established in Gray’s outside the confines of the two Temples or Lincolns Inn. Nowadays the Inn can boast leading sets in the fields of commercial, insolvency, defamation, criminal, construction and public law, as well as human rights specialist Matrix, a creation of the new millennium.

Two of the three aptly named ‘pioneers’ whose names are specifically mentioned in this context were Richard Yorke QC and Douglas Frank QC who amalgamated two cohorts of commercial and planning lawyers into a single set at 4/5 Gray’s Inn Square through whose doors passed a diverse number of stars such as Konrad Schiemann (later a judge at the European Court of Justice), Appellate Judges such as David Keene, Alan Moses and Jeremy Sullivan and high profile advocates such as George Carman and Cherie Booth. The set also instigated associations (which continue to this day) with eminent academics such as Sir Wade and Gunter Treitel as well as with prominent lawyers from overseas jurisdictions. In the mid-nineties (when I was joint head) it was runner up three years in succession as Chambers of the Year, and under its present leadership and with scope for expansion is looking to scale the same heights a quarter of a century on.

The smallest of the Inns, Gray’s has always punched above its weight. On one glorious month in 2017 it boasted (though discreet pride is more its style) the first woman President of the Supreme Court, the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls, and has just added the President of the Family Division to its number of high office-holders. The Inn of Bacon, Holt, Birkenhead, Atkin and Bingham fully deserves a commemorative work of this distinction.

Reviewer: Michael J Beloff QC, Treasurer of Gray’s Inn 2009