By Andrew Goodman
Publisher: Blackstone Press
Price: £40 hard cover; £20 soft cover
Anyone who has owned one of his Court Guides will know that Andrew Goodman is a fast walker. His five-minute walk from the tube station to the court usually means 15 minutes for those of us who proceed at a sedate shuffle even when we are not carrying half a library of law books.
So the lack of walking times in Goodman’s new Walking Guide to Lawyers’ London is welcome. Nobody needs to feel like a slow coach – in fact you do not even have to be walking at all to enjoy the book.
What we get is a book about legal London that is accessible, attractive, up-to-date and interesting to read. Presented as a ‘walking guide’ (although it is perhaps too large for most pockets), Goodman’s book is a perfect mix of historical information and modern photographs.
The photographs are striking in their sheer crispness. This means the book will be just as much at home on a law firm’s waiting-room table or barrister’s chambers, or in the present sack of a retiring senior partner or head of chambers, as it would be in the rucksack of an enquiring tourist with an interest in the landmarks of legal London.
Many of the photographs capture the essential mood of familiar places in a way that can escape us when we are over-familiar with those places. The sight of New Square in the snow, for instance, conveys its timelessness to perfection. Few will have seen such striking
photographs of buildings they know. Careful lighting, gentle hues and the omission from most of the photographs of any sight of wandering human beings, make it impossible not to appreciate the images for their own sake.
The crisp photographs are complemented by a clear and unfussy prose style, carrying just the right amount of detail as to the history and context of lawyers’ London. Well-researched and well-written, it is a minefield of “bet-you-didn’t-know” information about the very places in which so many of us spend so much of our time.
At this point in the evolution of legal services in England, this book is a timely reminder of just how beautiful many parts of what used to be the undisputed boundaries of legal London.
