Sometimes you can’t do better than Bruce Springsteen: ‘Down here it’s just winners and losers and don’t get caught on the wrong side of that line.’ Jack Straw will appreciate the full force of the Boss’s observations. But there were also winners and losers among the Conservatives. And, beyond the fate of individuals, we might ask on which side of the line the interests of the law have ended up.

The big individual loser among Tory hopefuls was Chris Grayling, one-time shadow home secretary. He never quite got the message that his party had moved on from the Howard years and was now presenting itself as the defender of liberty. He was notably kept under wraps during the election and has now disappeared into Work and Pensions as minister of state. We should spare a thought for Dominic Grieve. He spent two years trying to make sense out of policy led by David Cameron that the Human Rights Act should be repealed. In the end, he made a decent enough fist of something that at least sounded relatively coherent even if few lawyers were much impressed. His reward was to fall victim to the post-election realignment and he cannot but feel a bit disappointed with the role of attorney general. He works with Edward Garnier as solicitor general. The two of them are old friends, good lawyers, and are likely to make an effective team. The new attorney made a gutsy initial statement: ‘I am particularly pleased to be in a position to contribute to the government’s civil liberties agenda, which is a personal priority for me; to work to improve access to justice; and to ensure the rule of law strongly underpins everything we do.’

The appointment of Ken Clarke as secretary of state for justice and lord chancellor was unexpected, as much by Clarke as anyone else. He admitted to the BBC: ‘It surprised me when I was offered it.’ He speculated that replacement of the Human Rights Act might be a lower priority than promised: ‘We are not committed to leaving the European Convention on Human Rights. We have committed ourselves to a British Human Rights Act. We are still signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights.’ Clarke is, of course, unusual for a senior Conservative in being pro-Europe. He famously described attacks on the convention as ‘xenophobic nonsense’. Judging by his evident delight in being dressed in formal robes and sworn in by Lord Judge, he will enjoy the job that he never expected.

Clarke is a good appointment in a broader sense. Doubts were expressed at the time of its transfer to the Commons about how well the post could be handled. His choice and the earlier one of Jack Straw show that the major political parties understand the need to deploy in the post a heavyweight politician with gravitas and a legal background. Despite all the doubts, mostly led by Conservative Party ex-ministers like Geoffrey Howe, the post has successfully been transferred to the elected House.

One of the innovations of the Lib-Con coalition is that we have a Continental-style written agreement on policy to supplement the party manifestos. From a lawyer’s point of view, the three most important of the eleven sections are those on political reform, relations with the EU and civil liberties. The latter reflects the fact that Labour allowed itself to be repositioned as the ‘nasty party’ that took the authoritarian stance usually expected from Conservatives like Michael Howard. Let us hope that its defeat leads to reconsideration.

The coalition government has committed itself to an impressive list of measures that include strengthening Freedom of Information legislation, a ‘great repeal’ bill of objectionable provisions, and further regulation of CCTV. Measures of direct interest to lawyers will be a specific commitment to protect trial by jury, a review of libel laws, and a somewhat mysterious promise to establish ‘a new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences’. We will see in due course what this means.

Europe promises to be a serious fault line between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives but David Cameron seems to have used the coalition to dump a number of otherwise sacred cows. A significant victory for pragmatism was flagged by a commitment to ‘approach forthcoming legislation in the area of criminal justice on a case-by-case basis’. The Lisbon Treaty gave the UK the power to take itself wholesale out of EU criminal justice provisions. Some of these are pretty useless but the European Arrest Warrant has, for example, proved effective and it would be a nonsense to turn our back on a procedure that allows accelerated transfer of suspects between EU countries. The European Commission is also seeking to agree a series of measures defending suspects’ rights, to which the UK should give its support.

The provisions on political reform and budgetary cuts will be the subject of major political debate. There are some ironies. The promise of a ‘wholly or mainly elected upper chamber’ will be preceded by a feeding frenzy of appointments on a patronage basis to ‘rebalance’ the existing House of Lords. In the narrower field of the law, the coalition has made a good start. It is early days and experience indicates that it is always best to plan for disappointment, but this government has plans which many lawyers will welcome.

Unfortunately, these may be somewhat obscured by the battle to come over legal aid cuts. Here the profession has a direct interest in protecting the weak, the poor and the powerless.

That will be part of the immediate political battle once the honeymoon period is over. Let us hope that the government maintains its early promises elsewhere in its programme.

Roger Smith is director of the law reform and human rights organisation Justice