The Secret Barrister

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What to expect

An anonymous barrister's darkly comic and moving first-hand account of life in the legal system, and how it's failing us all.

The Sunday Times number one bestseller.
Winner of the Books are My Bag Non-Fiction Award.
Shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year.
Shortlisted for Specsavers Non-Fiction Book of the Year.

‘Eye-opening, funny and horrifying’ – Observer


You may not wish to think about it, but one day you or someone you love will almost certainly appear in a criminal courtroom. You might be a juror, a victim, a witness or – perhaps through no fault of your own – a defendant. Whatever your role, you’d expect a fair trial.

I’m a barrister. I work in the criminal justice system, and every day I see how fairness is not guaranteed. Too often the system fails those it is meant to protect. The innocent are wronged and the guilty allowed to walk free.

In The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It's Broken I want to share some stories from my daily life to show you how the system is broken, who broke it and why we should start caring before it’s too late.

A Sunday Times top ten bestseller for twenty-four weeks.

‘Everyone who has any interest in public life should read it’ – Daily Mail

Critics Review

  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • A sensation beyond lawyers’ circles. The Secret Barrister is an anguished, detailed polemic by an anonymous current practitioner about how dangerously flawed, fragile and underfunded our famed legal system has become . . . an SOS, a desperate and cogent call for action and resources before the justice system, and our faith in it, collapses . . . I hope the arguments . . . will resonate widely – and that the government will act on them before it is too late.

    Sunday Times

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