Bringing Down Goliath: How Good Law Can Topple the Powerful

Product Information

Maugham wrote: “We both know the review has got nothing to do with the quality of the book and everything to do with what The Times is - and where it stands in relation to my politics - which is exactly the point my tweet makes.

For a start, Jolyon Maugham is not quite part of the privileged North London elite that many will have assumed. Maybe he is now, but his account of his dysfunctional childhood and upbringing leaves one impressed he was able to overcome it and forge his career. It’s a reminder that for everyone in public life there’s a real person behind the persona.

Jolyon Maugham KC founded Good Law Project in 2017 with the belief that the law can also put power into the hands of ordinary people. It has brought a series of landmark cases against a dishonest and increasingly autocratic government and won widespread acclaim in successfully reversing Boris Johnson's unlawful suspension of Parliament. Already the largest legal campaign group in the UK, Good Law Project is shining light into corners the establishment would rather keep dark - from the failures of Brexit to the still-developing PPE scandal, to the tax arrangements of business giants like Uber. Taxation law specialist Maugham was widely condemned in 2019 after claiming he had “killed a fox with a baseball bat” while wearing his wife's kimono in his garden on Boxing Day.

Rowling rejected the suggestion that she was aware of his attempts to engage in discussions about gender issues with other feminists. He wrote: “The evidence that JK Rowling has been ‘cancelled’ for her views about trans children is (self-evidently) a little thin on the ground. But the evidence that her words cause anguish to trans children, who cannot speak for themselves, is evident from charities, like Mermaids who are obliged to speak for them.” By law, the government must publish a summary of any publicly awarded contracts within a certain timeframe.Mercy Grant had a dream of becoming a hairstylist and living a quiet existence with her husband and child. As it turned out, her life was anything but quiet.

This is, surprisingly, not hypocrisy. Like many convinced of their own righteousness, Maugham arrives at a seemingly hypocritical conclusion by fanatical sincerity. The explanation for these contradictions is simply that, to Maugham, ideology is the first condition of judging, and the law is merely an instrumentality to achieve his preferred political ends. A good judge, to Maugham, is a judge who will implement Maugham’s preferred political outcomes. Given how confused the rest of his writing is, Maugham is strikingly clear on this point. Judicial diversity, for example, is not good if judges simply reflect the population they serve. The “real problem” which diversity must solve is changing the sort of judgments that come down, so that judges take the “political context” into account in the way Maugham likes. A judge who comes from a demographic that makes them close to a “feminism of privilege” (apparently, being older and female?) is likely to issue suspect decisions. Maugham wants a judiciary which speaks not with many voices (which, of course, is the definition of diversity) but rather “a single voice”, presumably one which is in perfect concord with him. Maugham doesn’t mind if his political goals are achieved either by a written constitution (which judges cannot pass) or judges simply judicially inventing one. The talk began with Maugham getting candid with the audience when he reflected on his life from childhood to tax lawyer to founding the Good Law Project. He talks of his adoptive father throwing him out when he was 15 years old and how he relocated from New Zealand to the UK with a desire for normalcy after an abusive relationship with the patriarchy. When he relocated, he met his biological father for the first time. He depicts a specific moment that surprised him about his father, an upper-class man, which was that he did not care to know what life was like in a coal-mining village. Maugham remembers this to be his connection with the working class, that he reveals he can now no longer connect with in his place of privilege. He talks of how his adolescent hardships led him to have conventional aspirations that led him to become a tax lawyer, as he desperately wanted to fit in.This story is about greed and power, violence and betrayal, lies and deception, survival, redemption and love. Mercy's story is scandalously unique, a never-before-told story. He's also not wrong in many of his arguments. It's true that access to the law and legal aid is unequal and unfair. He's right to criticise the law on deprivation of nationality, which seems to me fundamentally unjust and illiberal. He’s correct to bemoan the government’s readiness to use its bottomless bank account to take bad cases repeatedly to court, especially HMRC in its obsessional pursuit of tax collectors’ rights. And I agree with him that the judiciary must be open to public criticism, though he seems happier when it's at his hands than at the Daily Mail's. The Harry Potter author’s remarks triggered a row as Maugham first suggested Rowling should read his book, before turning his sights on her gender-critical views.

In Bringing Down Goliath, Jolyon Maugham shares his inspiration and his purpose, and he reveals the story behind these landmark cases and the hidden fault lines of our judicial system. He offers an empowering, bold new vision for how the law can work better for all of us in the fight against injustice. Maugham also responded to a letter signed by 150 writers including Rowling, which denounced the “restriction of debate”. Autobiographical and alluring, Jolyon Maugham portrays his uneasy relationship with the establishment in Bringing Down Goliath , which speaks to people who believe in the power of public law. He reveals that his vision is to give power to the underdogs, or David, in reference to the title, which alludes to the classic story of David and Goliath. Maugham’s reference to Goliath is an indirect reference to the people in power that haven’t been held to account, which is the driving force that led him to creating the Good Law Project in 2017. Good law is difficult and, to most people, rather boring. It does not play well on social media. One benefit of the less highly networked culture of the recent past is that the acquisition of influence tended to be slow, and meritorious; whereas today, a certain kind of status within the ever-growing online legal world can be achieved swiftly, by playing to the cheap seats. So, for the time being at least, it is hard to completely refute Maugham’s clichéd insistence that “the real court is that of public opinion”.

Sponsored

Anyone on this thread who believes that wasting billions – documented by the government’s own watchdog – on overpriced, unsuitable equipment is a good idea needs to have their heads examined. This book highlights significant failings and potential widespread corruption. It shows how the law can prove and challenge but is failing to hold to account. However, as argued in this book, it is beyond its reach or remit. Jolyon Maugham’s revealing account of his life and career exposes a flawed world view so common to lawyers A revealing, empowering vision of how the law can work better for all of us, from Jolyon Maugham KC, founder of Good Law Project. Mr Maugham claimed that the bad review of Bringing Down Goliath, which explores a series of high-profile cases brought against the Government by his governance watchdog the Good Law Project, was because of where The Times “stands in relation to my politics”.