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Starter question for 10 points: Who makes laws? Take a moment to think about it. If your first reaction was to say politicians or government, you are probably part of a large majority. If you said lawyers, you are probably part of a sizeable minority. The longer you think about the question, the more you realise that laws are made at a number of levels and from a variety of sources.

Let me offer you a straightforward dichotomy. Let’s say that politicians make laws, lawyers advise on those laws and the state upholds the laws through the courts. The reality, at least in England, is far more complex and intertwined of course. For example, if we look at this from a legal perspective, it is fair to say that a majority of judges in the higher courts in England and Wales have at some point been practising solicitors or barristers. To give further credence to the influence of the legal profession, it is also true to say that lawyers at all levels are involved in the law-making process, both directly and indirectly.

If I were to take a walk through Whitehall’s corridors of power, I imagine and I hope that I’d find at least some lawyers along the way. There would doubtless be many more hidden behind closed doors, including civil servants and parliamentary draftsmen, quills in hand, churning out the ever-increasing amount of government legislation onto the statute book.

Indeed, it seems sensible and desirable that those who advise on and interpret existing laws should be involved in some way in making better laws in the future. It seems even more sensible and desirable given that new laws are being made at a faster rate than at any time in history and, due largely to the power and influence of the media, we are faced with increasingly reactionary governments whose policy ideas seem to be generated out of Daily Mail headlines and populist political philosophy. This could certainly be said to have been a feature of the Blair years.

At the last UK General Election in May 2005, 72 (12 per cent) out of 630 MPs from the three main parties (i.e. Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat) were either practising barristers or solicitors prior to their election. A sizeable minority you might say. Top of the pile, the former Prime Minister, whose legal background has been well documented. At one point during Tony Blair’s premiership one-third of his cabinet were lawyers.

Tony’s cronies, figures such as Derry Irvine and Lord Falconer, were according to many political pundits beneficiaries of Blair’s legal nepotism. Irvine founded the set of barristers’ chambers (11 King’s Bench Walk, London) where Blair was a junior tenant, and Blair appointed Irvine as Lord Chancellor shortly after becoming Prime Minister in 1997. Then there was Irvine’s successor, Lord ‘Charlie’ Falconer, who shared student digs with Blair in Wandsworth, London, in the late-70s. Whatever the accusations levelled at Blair, here were two men of high legal standing who became heavyweights in the political arena.

Talk of nepotism should not detract from the long list of elected lawyer-cum-politicians who comprise the sizeable minority. There are many dedicated public servants and some climbers of the greasy pole who have swapped their legal practising certificate or wigs and regalia for life in the Westminster village.

It seems to me the legal profession should take comfort from the knowledge that at least some of their number who are helping to shape new laws possess the capacity for objectivity and know what it is like to work at the coal face. After all, that is why the views of the legal profession are respected, listened to and, most importantly, acted upon.

Whether you’re a junior solicitor at a city firm in London who is posted to New York to assist on a multi-million dollar cross-jurisdictional business transaction, or a junior solicitor at a ‘high street’ firm who is sent down the road to take a statement from someone who has tripped in their local grocery store, lawyers all represent the same profession, and one which contributes to the very fabric of society.

While the above sentiments enthuse me and make me proud to be a part of the legal profession, something is still troubling me….

I think I know what it is. It is the erroneous assumption that the lawyer-cum-politicians kept their legal hats on when they took political office.

The worry is that these people may have lost themselves in a world of party politics where the lines between principles and pragmatism, idealism and realism, and socialism, liberalism and conservatism have become blurred. But who am I to question the motives and thinking of politicians?

We’ve all seen politicians shout from the rooftops when the policy suits and shift in their seats uncomfortably when the policy doesn’t suit, but that is politics, or certainly that is party politics. It is an entirely different world from the legal profession. Perhaps lawyers who become politicians quickly learn the complexities and hypocrisies of the political world and accept that they must work within the confines of the system.

In any event, it is only a select number of politicians who possess the real power to make laws. The UK Government comprises the Cabinet (around 20 Secretaries of State, one for each Government Department) and a range of ministerial appointees (making a Government of approximately 80 members). Notwithstanding the power and influence of interest groups, the media, and other external influences aside, it is the Government which drives the legislative agenda. Even within Westminster, the power of backbenchers, opposition MPs and even select committee members to make and shape new laws is limited.

You will recall however that I highlighted the fact that one-third of Blair’s cabinet were lawyers in a previous life. It cannot be denied that lawyers have had, and continue to have, direct access to the law making process.

Should we take comfort from the sizeable minority? My view is yes we should. Even though these people have swapped their legal hats for political ones, and the realities of political life may have somewhat stymied their ability to pursue altruistic policy goals, I would rather have them there than not.

I consider myself fortunate to have experienced the world of politics, albeit briefly. I consider myself more fortunate to now be working as a lawyer. I came to the law having worked in another field first. In my case I studied politics at a national and European level, and I then found myself working in politics, lobbying politicians and a range of interest groups at a local, regional and national level.

I’d always been aware that politics and law were closely related, but my experience of working close to Westminster and in the local government sphere opened my eyes to how the two relate. When I attended meetings at the offices of large property companies and sat opposite teams of lawyers from large city of London law firms, never did I think that I would become a lawyer myself.

The reality of practising law will not, for most of us, mean taking a ground-breaking case to the House of Lords or the European Courts of Justice or Human Rights, but I enjoyed studying novel cases during my legal education and I understood and appreciated the dynamic issues raised by those cases, be they in contract or criminal law. I remember several occasions when a tutor would explain that a decision was made on ‘policy’ grounds, which always made me think about the role politics had to play in shaping the law.

Even if you do not consider yourself to be politically aware or interested, you are probably more political than you think.

Richard Cowan is a solicitor at Pannone LLP, and Editorial Board Member of
Xclusivenigeria.com.