Fake Law

Its stories of how the law often fails those whom it is meant to protect - how do barristers feel when someone they believe to be innocent gets banged up for five years? - make for gripping reading – John Crace, The Guardian on The Secret Barrister Funny, angry, mordant, social satire, reform manifesto - The Secret Barrister offers them all in this legal tour de force. Told through often heart-rending stories of victims and victors in a game of legal roulette, a quest for decency and proper standards of legal service shines through the bleakness. If the Secret Barrister has her or his way, it might happen a bit more often. Read this book, hope and pray – Andrew Adonis on The Secret Barrister This excellent book will hopefully raise awareness of what has been, until now, a silent crisis. It is at once a vicious polemic, a helpful primer and a cringe-inducing account of one barrister’s travails – Daily Telegraph on The Secret Barrister Terrifying and occasionally hilarious… this is an eye-opening, if depressing, account of the practice of law today. Perhaps there is hope, but the author leaves us in no doubt that urgent reform is needed – The Observer on The Secret Barrister Funny, frightening, frequently infuriating but above all profoundly human. As a sensitive and knowledgeable storyteller, the Secret Barrister does for lawyers what James Herriot did for vets – James O’Brien on The Secret Barrister Takes the reader deep into the bowels of the criminal justice system … the message of this entertaining book is delivered with great skill…the book is at once a lament and a celebration … the justice system as not just for criminals and victims but for all of us - it is the symbol of our nation’s humanity – The Times on The Secret Barrister What’s so powerful about The Secret Barrister is its ability to connect the dots…revealing a picture that is more a commentary on society as a whole than it is on robing rooms full of horsehair wigs – Afua Hirsch, Guardian on The Secret Barrister The Secret Barrister can write … everyone who has any interest in public life should read it … this is a book of some brilliance, clearly explained, cogently argued – Daily Mail on The Secret Barrister Dishes the dirt - or serves up a slice of reality - on what barristers do – The Times on The Secret Barrister By turns eye-opening, damning and hilarious, the secret barrister lifts the lid on a legal system where the system, the politicians, the lack of funding and sometimes the judges are the real villains and the victims are all of us – Tim Shipman, author of Fall Out and All Out War on The Secret Barrister

The Secret Barrister is a junior barrister specializing in criminal law, and the author of the award-winning blog of the same name. The Secret Barrister writes for The Times, the Guardian, New Statesman, iNews, Esquire, Counsel magazine and Solicitors Journal, and has appeared in the Sun, the Mirror and Huffington Post. In 2016 and 2017, the Secret Barrister was named Independent Blogger of the Year at the Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards. In 2018, the Secret Barrister was named Legal Personality of The Year at the Law Society Awards. Their first book, The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken, was a Sunday Times top-ten hardback bestseller for twenty-four consecutive weeks and a number one bestseller in paperback.