Reviews

Date01 May 1968
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1968.tb01197.x
Published date01 May 1968
REVIEWS
LAWYERS
AND TIFE
COURTS.
By
BRIAN ABEL-SMITH
and
ROBERT
STEVENS.
[London: Heinemann.
1967.
xiv and
Pi04 pp.
(with
index).
68s.
net.]
IN
this important volume the authors set out to provide
a
history
of
the
niovenicnt for the reform
of
the administration
of
justice in England over the
Inst two hundred years which, from the point of view of the present generation
of lawyers, and indeed
of
the citizcns
of
today,
is
the really relevant period.
As
they say, it is “history which leads up to and emphasizes the present
problems
’I
with which they are primarily concerned. The pnrticulur areas
of
this subject with which they concern themselves are,
as
their title makes clear,
the courts system in which justice is,
or
should be, administered, and the legal
profession, that is the people whose job it
is
to do the ndministering. The
book in fact becomes an account of the development
of
the system over the
period in question, though this is always tested,
as
it were, against
a
reformist
standard.
Within this field they discuss not only the courts proper, but other
judicial bodies
such
as
arbitration tribunals, and not only professional
lawyers, including the judges, but also their clerks, nn element in the system
the importance
of
which is almost always overlooked and on which
in
fact
they say but little, and what they describe
as
“advisory services provided by
non-lawyers
such
as
accountants. On the personal side, close attention
is
devoted, and properly, to the subject of legal education
:
indeed, upart from
Professor Gower’s well-known lecture, this
is
perhnps the best survey of
the
suhject.
The
book is obviously important; arguably the most important book on
legal administration which has appeared in the present century.
Its
impor-
tancc lies not
so
much in its content, which is often open to criticism,
as
in
the wide horizon which it opens to view nnd in its method
of
approach,
which is one of socinl evaluation by which it estnblishes
its
stnndards
of
judgment.
It
is both
a
sociological and
a
legal study of
its
subject-matter,
the sociological aspects receiving the greater attention; and
as
such it
is
certainly the most ambitious and important which has
so
far
appeared in this
country. At the same time it hardly makes adequnte acknowledgment
of
the
pionrering work
of
the few others who have opened furrows in this field,
such
as
Professor R.
M.
Jackson, whose Machinery
of
Jurtice
in
England
discusses many
of
the matters elahornted in this volume, and in
a
similar vein.
The book ought to be conipulsory reading for every lawyer, though the
result would not he
to
convert
all
of them into law reformers-and it
is
wforrn which the authors frankly admit that they
are
after-because there
is
R
certain nmount of overstatement,
a
tendency to overlook
a
good deal of
what, in
a
conservative profession like the law, nirist he regarded
ns
sub-
5tnntinl progress, and even an intolerance which
I
can wcll imagine will offcnd
many lawyers
of
the older school who, with
a
more intimate knowledge
of
the
working
of
the system, will rcgnrd ninny of the estimates which they find in
this work ns supcrficinl. This is
a
pity becarisc the merits of the book
far
outweigh its defects.
The authors are well equipped for the task which they have
set
thcm-
sclvrs, except perhaps in one respect. Professor Ahcl-Smith is
a
social
scientist
of
distinction who has sperinlised on social administrntion and
Pro-
fessor Stevens
n
lawyer whose achievements over
a
wide range
of
the
acadrmic ficld have already attrncted attention. Each is clearly radical in his
840

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