Subjects:

Biographies and Legal Humour

This book contains seven broadcast talks recently given by Lord Birkett. The wide interest of the public has been due in some measure to the great reputation which Lord Birkett had won for himself as an advocate in the criminal courts before he became one of Her Majesty’s judges.

The advocates discussed here are Thomas Erskine (1750-1823), whose name is for ever linked with those cases in which he fought for the liberty of the individual and the freedom of the Press; Sir Edward Clarke and Sir Charles Russell (both eminent Victorians); Rufus lsaacs (afterwards 1st Marquess of Reading and Viceroy of India); Sir Edward Marshall Hall and Sir Patrick Hastings. All these men entered the House of Commons and, with the exception of Marshall Hall, they all became Law Officers of the Crown. Both Russell and lsaacs reached what many people regard as the highest office in the legal world—the office of Lord Chief Justice of England — and Erskine became Lord Chancellor.

But the true fame of these six men rests on their great achievements as advocates. In his final chapter Lord Birkett discusses, with the full weight of his authority, the art of advocacy and in particular the nature of forensic eloquence, the ethical standards of the profession, and the place of the advocate in the modern state.