The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It's Broken - Softcover

Barrister, The Secret

3.9

19,314 ratings by Goodreads

9781509884742: The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It's Broken

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1509884742 ISBN 13: 9781509884742

Publisher: Picador, 2018

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THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
Winner of the Books are My Bag Non-Fiction Award
Shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year
Shortlisted for Specsavers Non-Fiction Book of the Year

'Eye-opening, damning and hilarious' Tim Shipman, author of All Out War and Fall Out

“I’m a barrister, a job which requires the skills of a social worker, relationship counsellor, arm-twister, hostage negotiator, named driver, bus fare-provider, accountant, suicide watchman, coffee-supplier, surrogate parent and, on one memorable occasion, whatever the official term is for someone tasked with breaking the news to a prisoner that his girlfriend has been diagnosed with gonorrhoea.”

Welcome to the world of the Secret Barrister. These are the stories of life inside the courtroom. They are sometimes funny, often moving and ultimately life-changing.

How can you defend a child-abuser you suspect to be guilty? What do you say to someone sentenced to ten years who you believe to be innocent? What is the law and why do we need it?

And why do they wear those stupid wigs?

From the criminals to the lawyers, the victims, witnesses and officers of the law, here is the best and worst of humanity, all struggling within a broken system which would never be off the front pages if the public knew what it was really like.

Both a searing first-hand account of the human cost of the criminal justice system, and a guide to how we got into this mess, The Secret Barrister wants to show you what it’s really like and why it really matters.

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Review:

By turns eye-opening, damning and hilarious, the secret barrister lifts the lid on a legal system where the system, the politicians, the lack of funding and sometimes the judges are the real villains and the victims are all of us -- Tim Shipman, author of Fall Out and All Out War

The Secret Barrister can write...everyone who has any interest in public life should read it...this is a book of some brilliance, clearly explained, cogently argued, Daily Mail

Takes the reader deep into the bowels of the criminal justice system...the message of this entertaining book is delivered with great skill...the book is at once a lament and a celebration...the justice system as not just for criminals and victims but for all of us - it is the symbol of our nation's humanity, The Times

Terrifying and occasionally hilarious... this is an eye-opening, if depressing, account of the practice of law today. Perhaps there is hope, but the author leaves us in no doubt that urgent reform is needed, The Observer

This excellent book will hopefully raise awareness of what has been, until now, a silent crisis. It is at once a vicious polemic, a helpful primer and a cringe-inducing account of one barrister's travails, Daily Telegraph

A sensation beyond lawyers’ circles. The Secret Barrister is an anguished, detailed polemic by an anonymous current practitioner about how dangerously flawed, fragile and underfunded our famed legal system has become . . . an SOS, a desperate and cogent call for action and resources before the justice system, and our faith in it, collapses . . . I hope the arguments . . . will resonate widely – and that the government will act on them before it is too late. -- Jenni Russell, Sunday Times

The unfolding calamity in our criminal justice system is best told in The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken. This angry yet forensic analysis from first arrest to prison is a gripping front-line view by an anonymous, lowly criminal barrister. Read and rage at evidence that “every day the provably guilty walk free”, while the hapless needlessly end up in jail. -- Polly Toynbee, Guardian

Fluently and engagingly written...a copy of this book should be placed on the desk of every judge, every trainee lawyer, every would-be lawyer, every politician, and every minister responsible for the legal system, The Literary Review

An illuminating and timely insight into the legal system, transforming arcane practice into accessible and fascinating anecdote, Sunday Express

If you have not already met The Secret Barrister, he or she makes an entertaining and acerbic holiday companion for those who don’t switch off their brains in summer -- Hilary Mantel, Guardian, Best Summer Books 2018

Book Description:

An anonymous barrister writes a darkly comic, provocative and moving first-hand account of life in the legal system and how it's failing us all

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