Bon Vivant

Sadness that the dumbing down of the office of Lord Chancellor has inevitably led to a lack of protection for an independent legal profession 

May 6, 2013: “I won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.” William F. Buckley, Jr.  

When I was a sixth-former, I decided to try for Oxford. In those days, there was an Entrance Examination. My Headmaster suggested I practise the General Paper. The first question was “Might you as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb?” Entirely missing the point, I wrote what I thought to be a humorous piece about the virtues of capital punishment. It was returned sporting a “Delta” and the comment: “You’re in the Sixth Form now. Grow Up.” 

Data Protection Law and Practice (4th edition) 
Rosemary Jay
ISBN: 9780414024960
December 2012
Publisher: Sweet and Maxwell
£225 

Data protection is not a popular subject, even among lawyers. Most of us have been refused an answer to some innocuous question “because of data protection”. The Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA 1998 is badly drafted and obscure: for instance, it uses schedules to deal with matters of fundamental principle rather than supporting detail. 

Prospective jury members had better make their excuses good if they want to wriggle out of performing their time-honoured duty 

April 8, 2013: Jury: A group of 12 people, who, having lied to the judge about their health, hearing, and business engagements, have failed to fool him – Henry Louis Mencken  

Last week, the jury was selected in the sensational trial of Jason Grimble and Moses Lane for the alleged murder of the disliked Claude Allerick, formerly one of Her Majesty’s (Circuit) Judges and sometime member of Gutteridge Chambers. A last-minute reprieve had come when our previously assigned judge finally read at night in bed one page too many of the voluminous Criminal Procedure Rules and slipped a disc. Fate then gave us the lovely Jonathan Hay to try our case and the deceptively relaxed George White QC, of Treasury Counsel, to prosecute us. 

David Wurtzel reviews The Winslow Boy – a tale of a family’s sacrifice as it fights to clear the name of an innocent son  

The Winslow Boy was first performed in May 1946. Watching it now at the Old Vic, one is struck by how much more “relevant” it has become. A plethora of issues comes alive, again and again, in this brilliant production in which every performance is pitch-perfect. 

Youth Court Guide (5th edition) 
ISBN: 978 184766 982 7
October 2012
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Price: £70 

Youth Court hearings can be much more complicated than is often assumed. Leaving aside for a moment the fact that you are dealing with some of the most vulnerable people in society – children – and all the added complications that come with that, there are differences in procedure, court composition and sentencing to contend with. How convenient then to have these differences set out in one easy to read handbook. 

Sports Law  (Second Edition)
by Michael Beloff, Tim Kerr, Marie Demetriou and Rupert Beloff
Published by Hart Publishing, October 2012
ISBN 1841133671
£95 

Any lawyer interested in the field of sports law should have the Second Edition of “Sports Law ” to hand; its lucid, comprehensive yet concise exposition of the relevant jurisprudence is as invigorating as a cold blast of fresh air in a sweaty workout. It reads like a good opinion, in which the author has mastered his subject and speaks authoritatively, with the answer and reasoning set out clearly and succinctly. 

The study is coherent: first, the pre-competition stage; second, the competition itself; third, the aftermath of disputes and disciplinary measures. 

The pre-competition stage focuses on the institutions that govern sport, their relations with each other and those taking part, and how the rules that control participation are established. The international and European aspects of sports law are particularly expertly covered: players’ rights and transfers as well as the commercial exploitation of sport where Articles 101 and 102 of the TFEU are to the fore. A section is devoted to the protection of children in sport. 

A change in trial judge and an uncomfortable truth 

March 7, 2013: “To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.” - Albert Camus  

This last month may have had its meteorological ups and downs, but I have a scent of Spring. This may have had something to do with recent events in the trial of Jason Grimble and Moses Lane, who are alleged to have murdered Claude Allerick, formerly one of Her Majesty’s Circuit Judges and sometime member of Gutteridge Chambers. 

Borderline Justice: The fight for refugee and migrant rights 
by Frances Webber,
Published by Pluto Press, October 2012
ISBN 0745331637 
£19.99 

Asylum and immigration law was described late last year, by one of its current leading barristers Colin Yeo, as “the hardest and most bitterly fought, most controversial, most convoluted, perhaps most poorly funded and surely most tilted legal battlegrounds between the individual and the state”. Practitioners nodding in agreement would do well to pick up Frances Webber’s lucid, compelling and often angry book. 

Formerly a barrister at Garden Court, she was part of a generation of activist lawyers who, since the 1970s, expanded the reach of public and human rights law into an area characterised by ever more restrictive decision-making and regressive politics. Whether battling the “culture of disbelief” in tribunals or arguing points of law before the House of Lords, she maintains that real advocacy means putting “the reality of clients’ lives into focus to judges inevitably insulated by their position of privilege and under political, bureaucratic and time pressure to see cases as purely intellectual exercises”. 

Rose Heilbron: The Story of England’s First Woman Queen’s Counsel and Judge 
by Hilary Heilbron
Published by Hart Publishing, October 2012.
ISBN 1849464014
£20 

The story of Rose Heilbron’s life, written by her daughter Hilary Heilbron QC, provides an inspiring account of her determination to succeed in a difficult profession. At the time that she began her career there were very few female barristers. She faced difficulties in obtaining pupillage as many members of chambers and clerks were reluctant to take on a female pupil. She began practice during the war years when many male barristers were away on active service. 

By the time they returned, however, she had become so successful that in 1949, at the age of 34, she became one of the first two women Silks. She undertook numerous high profile cases in both the criminal and civil courts. In due course she became the first woman appointed as a Recorder (of Burnley) and the second female High Court judge. 

The book highlights the difficulties that she faced and also describes the intense press coverage generated by the success of a female barrister coming to prominence over half a century ago. It is clear that this  was uncomfortable for her at times, but that she also used it to great effect in generating publicity for women’s rights. She combined this with railing against the social stigma of being a working mother. She did it not by strident feminism, but simply by getting on with the job in hand. 

The Rolls Building Art & Education Trust has been set up to use art works and historical items to promote awareness of the law and the business-related justice system among young people. Stephen Fash explains  

The Rolls Building is the largest specialist centre for the resolution of financial, business and property litigation in the world. It is also home to the Rolls Building Art & Education Trust (RBAET) which has been set up to use art works and historical items to promote awareness of the law and the business-related justice system among young people.