The Home Lawyer
The Essential Guide to Lawyers & the Law
By Michael Mansfield QC
Edited by Yvette Vanson
This is a unique, authoritative and straightforward guide to finding the right legal advice with accessible précis of the law by Britain’s most influential human rights lawyer.
Whoever you are, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, your life is never far from the law. Whether you’re buying a house, getting married, negotiating a contract, seeking personal compensation, involved in an inquest or facing legal proceedings, you have the right to use the law and access reliable legal advice. The Home Lawyer helps you identify your legal position and explains everything that you may need to know about how to proceed.
It tells you where and how to find the best legal advice, how to deal with your circumstances without recourse to the law, how to set about choosing the right lawyer for you and your family and how much it will cost. The book covers all the main areas of the law – from family, health, employment and housing issues to libel, disability, consumer advice, intellectual property, civil liberty and human rights, immigration, imprisonment, discrimination and welfare. Clear and accessible, The Home Lawyer is an indispensable guide for you and your family.
Michael Mansfield QC was called to the Bar in 1967, he established his own set of Chambers, Tooks in 1984 and became Queen’s Council in 1989. Michael has represented defendants in criminal trials, appeals, inquests and inquiries in some of the most controversial legal cases the country has seen, particularly where issues of civil liberties have arisen. Amongst the most recent are:; the deaths of Dodi and Diana; Barry George, accused of killing TV presenter Jill Dando; the family of Stephen Lawrence both in the private prosecution for murder and the Public Inquiry and the families of victims at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry in Derry and London.
Michael has represented many families at Inquests, including the Marchioness Disaster, the Deptford/New Cross Fire; the Lockerbie/Omagh/Dublin Monaghan bombings, and the father of Dodi Al Fayed in his pursuit of the truth surrounding the death of his son in a car with Princess Diana in Paris in 1997; most recently Jean Charles de Menezes, shot dead by police in Stockwell.
Michael’s past clients include: the Orgreave miners who were unjustly accused of riot during the miner’s strike in 1984; the Birmingham Six, released after nearly sixteen years of wrongful conviction; those in the ABC Official Secrets case and the Operation Julie drugs trial; James Hanratty, hanged in 1962 for murder; ‘spy’ Michael Bettany; Frank Critchlow and the Mangrove; the Bradford 12 and the Newham 7 against the National Front; robbers in the Knightsbridge Heist; Colin Wallace; the ‘Camberwell’, ‘Torso’, ‘Big H’ and M25 murder trials; Judith Ward; Iraqi dissidents fleeing Saddam Hussein; Turkish and Kurdish exiles; Palestinians charged with the Israeli Embassy bombing in London and Angela Cannings, the mother cleared of murdereing her two babies; Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain.
He is the President of the National Civil Rights Movement, set up following the publication of the Macpherson Report, and is the founder of Amicus, a charity that offers free legal representation to those on Death Row. He is a regular contributor to TV radio and public debates on many legal issues and on human rights.
Tooks Court Chambers brings together over seventy barristers under the leadership of Michael Mansfield QC who share two fundamental aims: social justice for the marginalised and the highest quality of representation for all failed by the justice process. Chambers has a reputation for high profile civil liberties work and specialises in actions against the police, crime, employment, discrimination, family, immigration and public law. Many chapters of the book have been written by Tooks barristers.
Edited by Yvette Vanson, who for twenty years was an independent producer/director of contentious award winning documentaries; her work has been described as "television of a high order, well crafted and aimed unerringly to engage both intellect and emotions" (Financial Times). Including: The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, Bafta Winner 2000; Kentucky Fried Medicine; The Battle for Orgreave; Presumed Guilty with Michael Mansfield; Two Boys from Bangkok; Making Advances, RTS Best Adult Education Series on sexual harassment at work. She developed and managed the East Sussex Social Services Media Unit making training videos for social services staff nationally and internationally also producing many highly acclaimed training and promotional videos for major charities & NGO’s, covering issues as diverse as disability, children in care and trade union rights, including the first DHSS film on the plight of carers. An actress for several years, in theatre and on TV, Yvette returned to study as a mature student and gained a BA. Hons. 1st class, in Social Science, before pursuing her career as an independent film maker. She has been married to Michael Mansfield for 25 years; they have a son, Freddy who is studying sociology at university.
Reference
Trade paperback
496pp
£14.99
ISBN 1 84354 200 5
234 x 156mm
Territories: World
Rights: US/TN/SL