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The Law and Lawyers of Jorrocks
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2009
Extract
Works of fiction are often valuable as records of contemporary life, and may also be of peculiar interest to lawyers. ‘It is always difficult,’ says Sir William Holdsworth, ‘for a legal historian to reconstruct the atmosphere of the period with which he is dealing.’ Statutes, law reports and legal text-books are insufficient for this purpose because—with certain notable exceptions such as the earlier Year Books and the De Laudibus of Fortescue—they do not tell us much about the manner in which legal business was carried on, nor do they throw much light on the characteristics of judges and practitioners. A wealth of material of this kind is, however, to be found in the writings of our English novelists though only a select few can be relied upon to present a reliable picture of the law as it was in their time. The lay writer who ventures into the domain of the law must necessarily do so at his peril. Trollope was fully alive to this danger when he made the suggestion that ‘writers of fiction should among them keep a barrister in order that they may be set right on such legal points as will arise in their little narratives and thus avoid that exposure of their own ignorance of the law which now, alas! they make.’
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- Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 1943
References
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