​James Wilson

SOME GREAT LEGAL ANECDOTES WELCOMED AT A TIME OF CHANGE FOR THE BENCH AND THE BAR

An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers

This is only a short book in 12 parts but every part of it is well worth reading for the insights it offers into the common law as we have it today. New Zealander James Wilson comes to his legal task with the same relish and intentions as he did with his previous work “Court and Bowled” and his books make a good read!

Wilson presents us here with his second book of short essays on law stories writing in his Preface that he looks “at a broad range of cases or other legal dilemmas” that have caught his attention over “nearly a thousand years of the common law” and there has been “no shortage of material”(Law students would agree!)

So Wilson poses the best question of all for us: “why are court cases such a fertile source for writers of fiction and non-fiction alike?” The answer is that they usually have a beginning, the middle… and an end!

They also have a ready cast of characters playing defined roles (Counsel will be pleased to hear!) He goes on to say that such characters always have an inherent crisis to be resolved and also contain a great deal of human interest: behind what he describes as “the theatrics and etiquette of the courtroom, and the often arcane language and concepts of the law, there are real people seeking answers to real-life problems”… beautifully expressed.

The common law is sometimes described as being “made by faceless corporations or rich and powerful individuals seeking to preserve their money or reputation” and that criticism has resurfaced recently. Just as often, however, as a balance it is made by ordinary people who are not seeking fame or wealth, but who are simply trying to right whatever they believed has been wronged.

Wilson’s collection has fifty stories of notable court cases covering more than a century of legal history. There are the great ethical dilemmas – and that desperate and tragic hard case of the conjoined twins where one, but not both, could survive. Another important vignette concerns the football fan Tony Bland who was left in a persistent vegetative state after the Hillsborough Disaster, and whose family faced the tragic choice of ending treatment- yes, this is the common law for you and why we are lawyers dealing with such difficulties.

And of course, there are the great legal cases such as Donoghue v Stevenson and Louisa Carlill’s case. We have the ridiculous and disgraceful Victorian scandals such as Oscar Wilde’s fall from high society and destruction, or the wrongful imprisonment of Captain Dreyfus. Then there are more topical cases, such as those involving religion and the law and the ‘clash of rights’ that sometimes occurs when devout people find their conscience will not allow them to act according to the law. Yes, they are all there.

And then there are cases that can only be described as absurd. The writer Julie Burchill was once sued by a litigant who was offended by her describing him ‘ugly’. In another matter, an unfortunate marital dispute required the judge to look at reams of hard-core pornography, and to try to find judicially-appropriate neutral language to describe it.

Written in an accessible style with an eye to the human as much as legal interest, Wilson’s collection will be of interest to lawyers and non-lawyers alike and is an excellent addition to the bookshelves. Thank you.