Subjects:

Biographies and Legal Humour, Other Jurisdictions

The first volume, Law Life and Laughter, edited by Professor Kahn and published in 1991, was the subject of many favourable reviews. It went through three impressions, was sold out years ago and today is a collector’s item.

This second melange of legal humour and piquant revelations of personalities in the law of southern Africa is almost entirely new, containing nothing that appeared in the first volume except a number of brilliant caricatures of which the temptation to reproduce was irresistible.

There are about 600 entries, all carefully edited with explanatory material, dealing with some 160 main characters and a host of minor ones (from Daisy de Melker and Isie Maisels, to Joe Slovo and Chief Justice LC Steyn). The text comes from over 110 books and from a number of law journals, magazines, newspapers, manuscripts, and communications, written or oral. The book is embellished by 90 illustrations, mostly being reproductions of caricatures; the rest sketches, paintings and photographs.

Filled with anecdotes and personal observations, as well as wonderfully intimate character descriptions, it gives a fly-on-the-wall insight into the South African legal system