Blom-Cooper Louis. Power of Persuasion: Essays by a Very Public Lawyer. Hart Publishing,2015. — 374 p.. 2015
Over the developing years of the UK's judicial review of ministerial and governmental decisions, Sir Louis Blom-Cooper was a leading advocate who grew up with the advent of a distinctive brand of public law. His range of public activities, both in and outside the courtroom, saw him dubbed by his colleagues as a polymath practitioner. Included were his chairmanship of plural public inquiries in child abuse and mental health; his media contributions in the broadsheet press and in broadcasting; and his innovation in penal reform, as an ardent campaigner for the abolition of capital punishment and a plea for a modern Homicide Act in the UK. He styled himself as a modern, reconstructed liberal - a man before his time. This collection of essays is uniquely prefaced by a self-examination of Sir Louis Blom-Cooper's unorthodox philosophy towards the law in action. The book covers a variety of socio-legal topics that express his ambition to inform a poorly educated public on the workings of the legal system. This aim involves a discussion of the constitutional history of Britain, unwritten and insufficiently interpreted. It reflects a commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights and portrays its international origins. The essays opine on crime and punishment; in the functioning of the courts and elsewhere the political shift from the penal optimism of the 1970s to the reactionary punitiveness of the post-1990s. The essays conclude with a miscellany of affairs, reflecting on professional practices and their product of judicial heroes in both Lord Reid and Lord Bingham.