Lawyers ways

IT is not given to lawyers, certainly to Indian lawyers, to carry their learning lightly. David Pannick does so with remarkable ease. A Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, he is the author of Sex Discrimination Law (1986) and two delightful books Judges (1987) and Advocates (1992). Witty and erudite, they correct many a false notion commonly held in India about the legal system in Britain.

Pannick has written for The Guardian. This is a collection of his fortnightly columns from The Times 76 in all. The title is a take-off from barristers who tell the judge that their closing submissions to the jury will not take long because they would like to move their car before 5 o clock. The columns are carefully sourced. Chief Judge Bazelon remarked that the comments by the lawyer, who spoke with such humility, were not reassuring as to his effectiveness in a serious criminal trial.

The author has been long at work collecting such cameos. He explains how he went about it.

I collect legal curiosities like others collect stamps, air miles, or Impressionist paintings. My book has no characters other than idiosyncratic judges and maverick lawyers. It provides no plot other than the continuing saga of the common law as it follows the route, as described by Lord Justice Diplock, of a maze and not a motorway, which involves regular detours past all sorts of unexpected sights. The following chapters serve no purpose other than entertainment, save to provide reassurance on two matters. It confirms, if there were otherwise any doubt, that the law is applied by human beings some of whom suffer from all the prejudices, vanities and irrationalities common to our species this book should also reassure judges and lawyers, as they toil in the dusty volumes of the law reports or scroll down austere legal pages on the Internet, that if they persevere they may just find something amusing.

An article aptly entitled Sweet Dreams records instances of judicial somnolence. What is surprising is not that judges occasionally fall asleep during trials but that they normally manage to stay awake. Courts are often hot and stuffy, the evidence boring and repetitive, the barristers long-winded and uninspiring. As Virginia Woolf wrote in 1938, the volume and tedium of the work of lawyers explains why they are hardly worth sitting next to at dinner they yawn so.

Nehru complained that lawyers conversations fall into a pattern and after a time the pattern begins to pall. He was right. Few lawyers make good conversationalists. Most revel in anecdotes and stale jokes. As dinner companions, judges can be insufferable.

Pannick is liberal and tolerant to a fault. At times, excessively so. Certainly his criticisms of some taboos, however justified in his country, would be misplaced in India. Lord Hailsham suggested in 1970 that it has been accepted since the seventeenth century that judges cannot resume a career at the Bar. Certainly the Bar has disapproved of any such return as a matter of policy, though it has not imposed a prohibition. There is, though, no good reason to prevent such action. It cannot seriously be suggested that judges will look more favourably on the submissions of one of their former colleagues.

His criticism of a consultation paper on barristers entertaining solicitors would be misplaced here. That practice is rampant in many a place in India. It is interesting to read of Justice McCardie who tried Sir Sankaran Nairs libel case with utter lack of firmness. Lord Justice Scrutton humiliated McCardie when allowing an appeal from his decision in a claim by a husband against another man for allegedly enticing away his wife. Scrutton stated, If there is to be a discussion of the relationship of husbands and wives, I think it would come better from judges who have more than theoretical knowledge. Scrutton added, gratuitously, that he was a little surprised that a gentleman who has never been married should, as he has done in another case, proceed to explain the proper underclothing that ladies should wear. McCardie responded by stating in open court that if any future case of his were to be the subject of an appeal to a court of which Scrutton was a member, McCardie would not supply a copy of his notes. The Lord Chancellor negotiated an uneasy truce.

Some of the columns were book reviews that are far from the stodgy ones lawyers tend to write. Very many teach a lesson one should take to heart.

Some courageous columns were written to expose a wrong or defend a wronged person. The book entertains even as it instructs and enlightens. It is a gift to carry learning so lightly.