Description
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Sitting in Judgment: The Working Lives of Judges by Penny Darbyshire
The public image of judges is stuck in a time warp. The privately educated old white Oxbridge male stereotype has survived long after it ceased to be true. Indeed the limited research that was permitted in the 1960s and 70s tended to reinforce this stereotype. Since the late 1980s the judiciary has changed largely as a result of better training and new and more transparent methods of recruitment and appointment. But how much has it changed and what are the courts like following decades of reform? Given unprecedented access to the whole range of courts - from magistrates courts to the Supreme Court - Penny Darbyshire has produced the most revealing picture of the judiciary in England and Wales ever seen. From it we learn that baby boomer judges are representative of the people and that the reforms are working. This new book also gives an unvarnished glimpse of the modern courtroom which shows a legal system under stress lacking resources and facing an ever-increasing caseload. This book will be essential reading for anyone wishing to know about the experience of modern judging the education training and professional lives of judges and the current state of the courts and judiciary in England and Wales.