Reviewed by: Paul Rogerson
Author: Simon Tupman
Publisher: Lawyers with a Life ltd (New Zealand)
ISBN: 978-0-473-17880-2
Price: £19.95

I apologise for beginning this review by stating the obvious, but lawyers are unpopular. Only recently the Master of the Rolls dwelt on the endurance of the negative stereotype while quoting a Gazette blog on the subject.

It may be that this image problem is ineradicable. Many people encounter lawyers in connection with difficult or even traumatic episodes in their lives.

Apart from buying a house, they only ever see a solicitor when something goes badly wrong. Whether the catalyst be death, debt or divorce, this is not a relationship with which the ‘client’ ever wants to be comfortable. Too often they are paying for something they don’t want to be.

Yet if that sounds too glib an explanation, then it probably is. No one wants to go under the knife, but surgeons are universally considered to be paragons. And what are they but problem-solvers too? (However, surgeons are free at the point of use - at least in the UK. How significant is that?)

If there is an image-building job on the legal profession still to be done, it could be founded upon this collection of interviews with ‘visionary lawyers who are making a difference’, compiled by former practising solicitor, now consultant and author, Simon Tupman.

A slim and easily digested volume, Legal Eagles begins with no fewer than 23 testimonials and a foreword by Linda Lee, president of the Law Society.

Tupman’s gallery of inspirational lawyers is drawn wholly from Commonwealth countries and the United States; there are five from the UK, four from the US, five from Australia and New Zealand and one each from Tanzania and Ghana.

If that suggests a degree of circumscription, the diversity of his interviewees more than compensates.

There is Andrew Glech of Slater & Gordon, the first lawyer to ‘float’ a law firm on a stock market; and Sir Nigel Knowles, joint chief executive of emergent global colossus DLA Piper.

But there is also Reprieve director Clive Stafford Smith, indefatigable defender of prisoners’ human rights, and Joana Foster, co-founder of an organisation devoted to empowering African women.

How all these people came to be what they are is never less than interesting, and they are all fine role models. If you want to know how to ditch hourly fees and stay profitable; battle religious conservatives in America to protect the rights of the dying; or modernise legal practice in provincial New Zealand, there are lessons for you here.

But the book is at its most diverting when it broaches the personal; and the small events that have life-defining consequences. Clive Stafford Smith got into the law after writing an (unpublished) book about a man on death row, the research for which alerted him to his vocation and eventually propelled him into the media spotlight.

There is much commentary too on urgent professional issues and trends, which legal business strategists will find engaging. Former Pannone managing partner Joy Kingsley believes that, come October 6 and alternative business structures, banks will open their own law firms.

And she knows this to be true - she was asked to run one.

This book is multi-faceted, being part-biography, part portraiture, part-business intelligence tool and part self-help guide. The author hopes it will help to ‘narrow the public perception ‘gap’ alluded to above and serve as an inspiration to young lawyers, which it deserves to do.

A portion of the author’s royalties is being donated to charities nominated by the interviewees.

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