Book reviews

Welcome to the Gazette's book reviews page. We review books about the law, books by lawyers, and books about lawyers. This section is a celebration of the significant contribution of lawyers and the law to literature and learning, the public interest and private enjoyment.

Law books

Mental Health Tribunals: Law, Policy and Practice
Monday, 13 May 2013
Philip Fennell, Penny Letts and Jonathan Wilson

It demonstrates the beleaguered nature of mental health legal practice under public funding that 14 years have lapsed since the last book for practitioners in this critical field. So critical, indeed, that this is one of few areas of legal practice where legal aid is available without means-testing to meet core European convention requirements. There have been other books on mental health law in this time, but the last decade has not seen a specialist publication addressed to legal representation.

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Books about lawyers

Doctor Crippen: The Infamous London Cellar Murder of 1910 and Jack the Ripper: The Theories and the Facts of the Whitechapel Murders
Monday, 13 May 2013
Nicholas Connell (Crippen) and Colin Kendell (Ripper)

I suppose if you are going to kill someone the priorities are: a) to kill someone b) to get away with it and possibly c) to generate a host of conspiracy theories. The anti-heroes of these books were partly successful in all respects. Crippen might have got away with it if he had played his hand a bit cooler; Jack the Ripper did get away with it. And certainly, they have both generated lots of speculation in print.

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Written by lawyers

The Man Under The Clapham Omnibus (the search for patient safety and justice)
Monday, 29 April 2013
Arnold Simanowitz OBE

As a champion of the vulnerable, Arnold Simanowitz has impeccable credentials. Born in South Africa just before the second world war, he is descended from Polish émigrés who fled to that country from the pogroms. His paternal grandparents made unlikely ostrich farmers; but the family’s emigration provided limited deliverance.

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