IN YOUR DEFENCE by Sarah Langford

“Sarah Langford is a barrister. Her job is to represent the mad and the bad, the broken and the hopeful. In court, she must tell their story, weaving it around the black and white of the law. These stories change the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary ways, but for a twist of luck, they might have been yours. In eleven heart-stopping cases, Sarah describes what goes on in our family and criminal courts. She reveals what it is like to work in a world of archaic rituals and inaccessible language. And she explores what it means to be at its mercy. Our legal system promises us justice and fair judgement. Does it, can it, deliver this?”

What is the background for the issue in the book?

Sarah Langford, the author, decided to write this book because she felt like most people didn’t actually know about the law and she thought that working as a solicitor or barrister was too glamorised and that not many people had any understanding of it all. Although the rule of law states that everyone should have access to the law, she felt like the law was too of place in our modern world and that we needed to help people understand that the law is not about ancient words and rituals, it is about helping people achieve justice. This book mainly explores how the law helps and changes people and how, as a barrister, she helped and represented them. The events that take place in the courts shape our society and, although the individuals involved tend to be the most affected, through one small twist of fate that could have been anyone of us.

What are the main arguments of the book?

One of the main arguments of the book is that the English legal system is the fairest and most efficient in the world. We pride ourselves in our legal system because foreigners choose to come here and stand before one of our judges rather than in their own country because they know that the judges cannot be bribed or threatened into doing anything other than applying the law. However, we are in danger of taking this for granted because our legal system is regularly threatened and wholly unsupported by those who should be protecting it. Most people believe we are far from the corrupted legal system that other countries have, however this book discusses that those people are mistaken and that, even now, people are being judged by their background and bank balance. This book also discusses that although our legal system is the fairest in the world; the law is also human justice and is designed and enforced by people. Therefore the law will always be imperfect. Sometimes solicitors, barristers and judges will make mistakes; it is also slow, chaotic and may also be illogical. However, it is one of the pillars that keep our nation stable and we need to embrace the flaws of the legal system and aim to work around them rather than blame them. Justice can only be achieved if we work for it, and so we must remain proud of our legal system, even when we face some of the mistakes made. Another argument in the book is that the law is greatly misinterpreted and many people believe that there is just one truth and the aim of a trial is to uncover that. However, there is no one truth and no one story, instead there are many stories and behind every case there is just a web of messy lives. A lawyer’s job is not just to uncover the truth of the case but to guide those people – whose lives have been completely transformed after a mistake – through the law and its systems and give them what they wanted. This means that doing their job is not always actually achieving justice because some may have to defend people who are clearly lying and clearly guilty, but the aim is just to make the best out of a bad situation.

How significant area the arguments in the book? 

I think that the most significant argument in the book was that the cases we hear about are cases that involve actual real people that have been affected beyond anything we can imagine by a mistake they made or by just being born into a family that will guide them down the wrong path from birth. I think that by having 11 different people’s cases explained to us in this book, Sarah Langford shows us how, although the law may seem complex, our lives are just as complicated. I really like how she explains that her job is to help her clients fit their lives, in all their messy shades of grey, within the black and white of the law by telling their story. I think this pretty much sums up how the law is not just about achieving justice but also about helping you structure your life to fit in with the law. A case is not just brought to court to uncover the truth, but it’s actually brought to court to try and guide these people who have been led astray and help them through a complex legal system. To summarise, this book focuses on the rule of law and the fact that we should always have access to justice and the legal system and we should be able to understand our laws in their entirety.

Reviewed by Jimena Gutierrez Reviriego