Why is a working lawyer bothering to do a law-based show?

In a guest post, barrister Steven Barrett argues that lawyers have been too eager to stray into politics – so it’s time to help non-lawyers understand the law.

Now I have my show, Steven Barrett: Due Process on TousiTV+, I thought it might be helpful if I explained why I’m doing it, because I am still, very much a working barrister. I work across a range of areas of both commercial and Chancery law, in that court that looks like an office building, the one regularly frequented by Prince Harry. It’s called the Rolls Building and it houses my part of our High Court. Like all answers by lawyers, it is complex.

Firstly, I do like the attention. Lots of people do, and while I enjoy my areas of legal work, it is fair to say that most attention goes to the criminal lot or to defamation lawyers.

But there are much more meaningful reasons. I have noticed, as Baroness Fox herself has noticed, that as law itself ballooned and became extremely complicated (even for many of us in the trade), some lawyers used the inevitable confusion to blur the line and to start doing politics.

I see that as an abuse of authority – an abuse of the respect members of the public very kindly give to lawyers. As many know, American cultural dominance in the UK is so strong that the media is often replete with US-style ‘lawyer dislike’. But that never translated to the people. I’ve been a professional lawyer for 21 years and found nothing but respect from that. I’m grateful for that – I do not like its abuse.

But whether I like it or not, it is clearly happening. But the reaction within my profession horrified me. (I am publicly neutral on Brexit and would be if the other side had won.) Party after party after party, leave voters were denounced as idiots. I have leave-voting, and remain-voting, friends and loved ones. Anyway, I thought, politics is beneath us, we are, I thought, lawyers before all else.

Since then, I have watched lawyers in public pontificate on politics – often in an openly nasty way. I was the first in my family to get A-levels and the first to go to university. I was working class. When I was called to the Bar, that fact was published in the Court Circular in The Times. From that day, I was a Gentleman. I’m deeply proud of that and I watched in horror as a then QC was obnoxiously rude to a journalist on Twitter.

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This can’t go on. But how do I stop it? Well, if I started public spats and arguments with them, I’d be just as bad as them. So, I came up with a better plan: if knowledge about the law is empowering these people to act badly, then I will empower non-lawyers by teaching them law. Which is exactly what I plan to do.

Baroness Fox and I are friends (which is not a statement my Nan would ever have dreamed possible) and we are friends because we both believe strongly in empowering people – often young people, so they can achieve more.

She supports a number of educational charities, each of which does good and I’m happy to volunteer at all of them. I helped set up BVL: Improving Social Mobility in Law 13 years ago. We take groups of young people from disadvantaged (or just ordinary) backgrounds and get them to do all sorts of different projects on law. They do work, because I think that helps build confidence and they either engage in mock court cases, or learning the constitution, in partnership with our Supreme Court. They may speak in Parliament on a very specific aspect of law, in partnership with the Law Commission.

But always, they are learning law. I was very cautious and what tipped me over the edge to write for The Spectator was Fraser Nelson agreeing to let me put hyperlinks in my articles to real law. Ignore the topic, pick an article and you should find links that an enquiring mind can click to learn law.

And that’s what I hope I will do on my show. Give non-lawyers that power that is being abused: the knowledge of law.

Steven Barrett is a barrister specialising in commercial and Chancery law. He writes on law for The Spectator. Follow Steven on X/Twitter: @sBarrettBar