2. See e g Tomasic Understanding Lawyers (1978) and Tomasic Lawyers and the Community (1978).

3. HL 15 May 1974.

4. [1956]2 All ER 866, [1956] 1 WLR 936. See also Yeoman Credit Ltd v Apps [1962]2 QB 508, [1961] 2 All ER 281; Astley Industrial Trust v Grimley [1963] 2 All ER 3.3, [1963] 1 WLR 584; Charterhouse Credit Co Ltd v Tolly [1963]2 QB 683, [1963]2 All ER 432; Unity Finance Ltd v Hammond (1965) 109 SJ 70; Farnworth Finance Facilities v Attryde [1970] 2 All ER 774, [1970] 1 WLR 1053.

5. An allied problem in relation to defective goods is whether to pursue a remedy against the manufacturer or the retailer. To a lawyer it is clear that the retailer is usually under a stricter duty but it is very doubtful whether this is correctly perceived by the public. Such ignorance is encouraged (or perhaps shared) by retailers, whose initial offer of amends is to return the defective goods to the manufacturer. In this case the public's perception of where the remedy ought to lie may well be more accurate than the existing law's as is shown by the proposals for reform of Product Liability.

6. [1963] AC 788, [1963] 1 All ER 341.

7. Section 1(3).

8. See Law Reform Committee Twentieth Report (Interim Report on Limitation of Actions in Personal Injury Claims), May 1974, Cmnd. 5630.

9. Central Asbestos Co Ltd v Dodd [1973] AC 518, [1972] 2 All ER 1185.

10. 94 LQR 21 at 59.

11. See e g Jenkins v Hargood [1978] Fam 148, [1978] 2 All ER 1001.

12. The best-known case is Miranda v Arizona 384 US 436 (1966).

13. I am indebted for my information here to Professor Michael Zander's fascinating paper ‘The Right of Silence in the Police Station and the Caution’ in Reshaping the Criminal Law (Glazebrook, ed), 344 at 349 et seq.

14. Griffiths and Ayres, (1967) 77 Yale LJ 300 at 312.

15. A view apparently shared by the draftsmen of Institution of Civil Engineers Conditions of Contract (5th edition), see clause 47.

16. Much important work has been done in this area in the United States especially by Professor Stewart Macauley. See especially ‘Non-contractual Relations in Business’ (1963) XXVIII American Sociological Review 55. Since England appears under-lawyered by American standards one might expect these conclusions to be even more true in England. Such empirical work as has so far been done tends to confirm this. See especially Beale and Dugdale (1975) 2 Brit Jo Law and Society 45.

17. There is extensive anecdotal evidence that firms in the construction industry ‘manage for claims’, that is, that they quote low prices with a view to using the provisions of the Standard Building Contracts to add on extras. There is room for an interesting investigation of why some trades, such as the commodity trade, appear much more willing than others to resort to dispute settlement by arbitration or litigation.

18. Legal Action Group Bulletin. January 1977, p. 9.

19. Cf. discussion above about public ignorance of police powers, pp. 89–40.

20. [1978] 3 All E R 1098. This report does not contain some of the more colourful facts, which may be garnered from the Annual Report of ‘Justice’ for 1978, pp 15 and 16.

21. Also, almost amazingly, of dangerous driving.

22. Fortunately her conviction was finally overturned by the Court of Appeal though not before leave to appeal had been refused by the single judge.

23. [1978] 3 All ER 540.

24. (1979) 68 Cr App Rep 197.

25. I do not overlook the possibility that even when understood, they may be ignored.

26. HMSO December 1977. See especially paras. 2.17–2.23 and chapters 1520. Between the events of the Confait case and the completion of the Fisher Report, Parliament had enacted the Criminal Law Act 1977, s. 62 but there is considerable scepticism as to the practical effect of that section. See a story by Martin Walker in The Guardian, 31 January 1979.

27. Knowledge of this right would by itself only be helpful to those who knew the name of a solicitor, probably a rather small proportion of those likely to be held in custody.

28. Op. cit. para. 15.6.

29. This is also in marked contrast to the position in local government, where until recently the senior officer was nearly always a lawyer and still often is.

30. I have in mind such cases as Secretary ofi State for Education and Science v Tameside Metropolitan BC [1977] AC 1014 and Laker Airways Ltd v Department of Trade [1977] QB 643, [1977] 2 All ER 182.

31. [1976] QB 629; Wade 92 LQR 331.

32. HC 680 (1974/).

33. Burkeman in Justice, Discretion and Poverty (ed. Adler and Bradley, 1975). 91 at 92. I cannot resist mentioning also, at least in a footnote, the recently discussed doubts about whether the Crown Agents have been operating on an improper constitutional basis since 1833: HC Deb 10 November 1978.

34. One of the best books I have read about law, Gideon's Trumpet, was written by Antony Lewis of the New York Times.

35. One might also note the enormous coverage of the Thorpe case which in general totally failed to disclose the legal significance of what was going on and the difficulties The Times and the Observer appeared to experience in stating and commenting on the result of the action brought by Miss Vanessa Redgrave and others against the Observer. See The Times, 13, 14 and 24 November 1978.

36. See now United Biscuits v Fall [1979] IRLR 110 at 113.

37. Trade Union and Labour Relations (Amendment) Act 1976, s.3(2).

38. Beaverbrook Newspapers v Keys [1978] ICR 582.

39. Friday, 26 January, 1979.

40. Sunday, 28 January 1979.

41. Compare the article on page 2 of the Observer for Sunday, 28 January 1979 with that by Alan Watkins on page 48.

42. The observant reader will already have noticed a number of examples of ignorance amongst lawyers, see pp. 41, above

43. In a lecture at Bristol in 1978.

44. 29 July 1978, p.22.

45. [1979] 1 Lloyds Rep 221.

46. [1975] 2 Lloyds Rep 118.

47. [1978] 2 Lloyds Rep 109.

48. See on these fascinating questions, especially Cassell & Co v Broome [1972] AC 1027, [1972] 1 All ER 801 and Miliangos v Frank [1976] AC 443, [1975] 3 All ER 801. Undoubtedly it takes a well-trained lawyer to tell whether a decision is per incuriarn. For instance in Dunning v Board of Governors of United Liverpool Hospitals [1973] 2 All ER 454, [1973] 1 WLR 586; Davidson v Lloyd Aircraft Services Ltd [1974]3 All ER 1, [1974] 1 WLR 1042; Deistung v South Western Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board [1975] 1 All ER 573, [1975] 1 WLR 213, the Court of Appeal construed s.32(1) of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 which provides that in certain circumstances the Court has power ‘on the application…of a party to any proceedings’ to order a person not a party to the proceedings ‘to produce to the applicant such of those documents as are in his possession…’ to mean that the Court could order production to someone other than the applicant on condition that the documents were not disclosed to the applicant himself. When the matter came before the House of Lords in McIvor v Southern Health and Social Services Board [1978] 1 WLR 757, [1978] 2 All ER 625 it found it transparently clear that this was the exact opposite of what the section meant. Those three decisions would appear to have been hopelessly wrong in the sense that any student in an examination who in 1972 had expressed the view that this was what the section meant would have been very likely to fail, but they were not, I think, per incuriam since they were not decided in ignorance of any statute or relevant decisions.

49. 41 MLR 237.

50. See e g K v Dearden [1978] Crim LR 287. See also the recent decision of the Court of Appeal in Bawden v Bawden [1978] QB 419, [1978]3 All ER 1216 which revealed the existence of a pattern of decisions in the Divisional Court which had developed in apparent ignorance of a well established and binding set of decisions in the Court of Appeal.

51. The Legal Action Group Bulletin, January 1979, p.3 suggests that some lay magistrates in Birmingham are not aware of the provisions of s.44 of Criminal Justice Act 1966 as to when a prison sentence may be imposed as an alternative to a fine.

52. The same may be true of family cases. Sir Neville Faulks in his entertaining autobiography tells how, having been a Defamation Silk, he was appointed to the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division and spent the Long Vacation reading Rayden.

53. I do not overlook the possibility that, on occasion, a little ignorance may be a good thing. Lord Campbell, when a reporter, had his drawer full of bad Ellenborough law and Lord Denning often appears to apply the ‘Nelson touch’. An investigation of the beneficial effects of ignorance must await another day.

54. Frankfurter Of Law and Men (1965), pp. 103–104.

55. The ABA has produced the 30 minute film ‘To Reason Why’ designed to introduce law-related education to educators, lawyers etc.

56. See Professor P. J. Fitzgerald in (1978) 128 NW 300 and better still his book This law of ours, specifically written for legal education in schools.

57. See Dobson (1977) 127 NU 875. A conference on ‘Law at School’ was organised by the Law Society in Bristol on 18 November 1978.

58. I do not overlook much excellent writing by existing legal correspondents but day to day presence on the staff can have effects which even the most able outsider cannot achieve.

59. When I took the Final Honour School at Oxford (already a large Law school with an intake of over 200 a year) in 1956 there were more candidates placed in the third and fourth classes combined than in the first and second classes combined and some ten per cent of the candidates failed outright. A few years later when I handled admissions in the University of Birmingham, we came close to admitting every candidate with minimum requirements.

60. Gower 13 MLR 137; Bridge 91 LQR 488.

61. For a critical view of training for the Bar see The Bar on. Trial (ed. Hazell 1978), especially chapters 3 and 4. There are many criticisms of the adequacy of articles, see eg LAG Bulletin, November 1978, pp.2467. My own (totally unscientific) impression is that at the top end of the profession, things are now very much better than they were 25 years ago, but it does not appear satisfactory in principle that so much of the cost of training for the profession should be borne by those firms which take articles most seriously.

62. I have in mind, in particular, drafting.

63. As far as I am able to detect the Bar is quite untouched by these developments.

64. I realise that both professions have taken a first cautious step by allowing the statement in the professional directories of the areas of practice in which barristers and solicitors respectively hold themselves out as competant. However, this does not go very far so long as many entries claim very wide areas of competence and there is no objective test of any kind as to qualification.

65. HMSO 1978.

66. Professor J. A. E. Griffith, New Statesman, 18 August 1978.

67. Lord Devlin The Judge.

68. HMSO 1978, para. 3.6.

69. Paras. 3.8 - 3.10.

70. Para. 3.17.

71. DPP v Smith [1961] AC 290 is often cited as an example but the difficulties in this case would seem to arise from it being clear and wrong, rather than correct and obscure.

72. [1964] AC 465.

73. [1969] 1 AC 33.

74. [1967] 1 AC 361.

75. See especially Harbutt's Plasticine v Wayne Tank and Pump Co [1970] 1 QB 447. The recent speeches of the House of Lords in Photo Production Ltd v Securicor Transport Ltd [1980] 2 WLR 283 suggest a strong desire to avoid this danger.