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| Adam King |
If society’s job of finding out who is and who isn’t guilty of crime is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. And this is as true for regularly convicted thugs, whose rights it is easy to disdain, as it is for you and me, who might be wrongly accused of Causing Death by Careless Driving say, and who shouldn’t have to wait several years and sell the family home in order to get a fair hearing. Lawyers are an inevitable, and sometimes valuable, part of the process.
But although persuading people to consider unattractive possibilities is something we lawyers claim to be good at, the task of engraving in the public consciousness an image of ourselves as anything other than a flange of greedy leeches has long proved beyond our capabilities.
Until, that is, the Secret Barrister came along in 2015. His carefully researched blogposts pointed out inaccuracies in Ministers’ statements and in media reports of trials and sentencings, and candidly explained the workings and shortcomings of our criminal justice system. This tireless effort led to a substantial following and a book – Stories of the Law and How it’s Broken – that has sold over 250,000 copies.
But although persuading people to consider unattractive possibilities is something we lawyers claim to be good at, the task of engraving in the public consciousness an image of ourselves as anything other than a flange of greedy leeches has long proved beyond our capabilities.
Until, that is, the Secret Barrister came along in 2015. His carefully researched blogposts pointed out inaccuracies in Ministers’ statements and in media reports of trials and sentencings, and candidly explained the workings and shortcomings of our criminal justice system. This tireless effort led to a substantial following and a book – Stories of the Law and How it’s Broken – that has sold over 250,000 copies.
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