PREFACE

This work was inspired by the time I spent as a student volunteering with a cam­paigning group for miscarriages ofjustice. I was responsible for corresponding with the prisoners; men and women claiming wrongful conviction and writing to us more in hope than expectation.

While volunteering, I came across several lawyers who had also given up their free to time to engage in pro bono casework for these prisoners. I was inspired by the passion they displayed and became enthused at the zeal with which they pre­sented the need for a strong criminal defence profession. They raised the rhetorical question: who else will stand up for the most vulnerable groups in society against the might of the establishment? In so doing, they forced me to query the common stereotype that lawyers are greedy and only out for themselves. I wanted to prove them right, highlight this noble cadre of lawyer. No matter how much of a minority they were, I intended to hold up their practice as a beacon of what the profession could be and, thereon, of the need to encourage more crusading lawyers and not decry them all in one fell swoop.

It is to my great regret that I could not find such lawyers in the research I subse­quently conducted. Indeed, it revealed quite the opposite as I found that lawyers who would regale me with grandiloquent statements of themselves and their pro­fession failed to back up this bluster with actions of substance. They let me down and, more importantly, they let their clients down. As a result, I fear that what I have depicted in this book will only add fuel to the fire of those who already dismiss lawyers as contemptible. While I am critical of the poor lawyering that I encoun­tered, I hope that my findings will not be used in this way. Rather than drawing any firm conclusions about the hopelessness of wanting integrity and honour from the legal profession, I desire that my research can represent a starting point for a renewed debate about just what exactly we want from our criminal process and how we can use it to achieve justice.

Whatever reforms or public spending cuts take place, it is likely that lawyers will continue to be central to upholding the rights of those suspected, accused and con­victed of crimes in the criminal justice system for the foreseeable future. So we must find a way to work with them, rather than against them. And we must make sure that lawyers work for justice, rather than against it.

Daniel Newman

Dinas Powys Christmas 2012