Editors' Blog

Which Bar heavyweights could (or would) fill Goldsmith’s shoes

Posted 26/06/2007 by John Malpas

That’s one down and - in all probability - one to go. Lord Goldsmith having tendered his resignation as Attorney General last Friday (22 June), the consensus is that the holder of that other Cabinet-level Government legal post - Lord Chancellor and Minister of Justice Lord Falconer - will also soon be sailing off into the sunset. In Falconer’s case, however, it would appear that he is at least waiting around to see whether or not he figures in the plans of incoming prime minister Gordon Brown.

Goldsmith and Falconer both hailed from the same set of chambers, Fountain Court, and everyone at the Bar agrees their departures dealt the chambers a considerable blow.

Of the two commercial silks, Goldsmith was regarded as the bigger hitter and it would be a major boost for the set if he decided to return to full-time practice. Indeed, he would surely be an even more powerful draw than he was before given his recent, first-hand experience in, er, public and international law. In line with tradition, he remains listed as a full tenant at the set, with senior clerk Mark Watson acting as his clerk, if only in an honorary capacity. It would be a massive snub if he decided to go elsewhere.

As for Goldsmith’s record as Attorney General – well, he is certainly better known now than he was before he joined the Government, thanks to his central role in no fewer than three controversies: the advice he gave in the run-up to the war in Iraq, the decision to terminate the Serious Fraud Office’s investigation into the Saudi Arms deal with BAE Systems and his role in deciding whether or not to prosecute anyone over the cash-for-questions affair.

His detractors will argue that his commercial experience and lack of political nous – notwithstanding a successful year as Bar Council chairman – did not stand him in good stead for the political storm that threatened to overwhelm him on several occasions.

In a speech he gave before Christmas, Goldsmith was keen to point out that he is not the first Attorney General to have got into some scrapes – it goes with the territory. He also argued that the Attorney General’s conflicting roles – that of law officer, Cabinet minister and Member of Parliament - should be preserved, much in the same way as Lord Irvine tried to persuade all and sundry that the Lord Chancellor’s odd hotchpotch of responsibilities made sense.

One senses that Brown has other ideas. Intriguingly, it was suggested over the weekend that a leading Liberal Democrat was being lined up to take the post of Attorney General. That would chime with Brown’s promise to make Government more accountable to Parliament.

As for potential successors, it is being suggested that Brown may try and persuade another leading commercial silk, the Labour peer Lord Grabiner, of One Essex Court, to take the post. Brown and Grabiner certainly get on, Grabiner having conducted an enquiry into the black market for the Treasury back in 2000.

Former Bar Council chairman Lord Brennan is another big-hitter (and a blogger to boot) who may be in the frame. Quite why either of them would want to exchange lucrative careers at the Bar for such a politically-sensitive and accident-prone job is, however, anybody’s guess.

A far more realistic contender is surely Baroness Scotland, given her solid record as a junior Government minister combined with a successful career at the Bar.

Whatever happens, the ranks of barristers who oppose the abolition of juries for fraud trials will be hoping that the new incumbent will be more sympathetic to their cause than Goldsmith was. Someone with a criminal-law background such as Scotland is certainly likely to be more pro-jury than a barrister from the commercial or civil branches of the profession.

Then again, when Brown promised to reconnect with the voters, ‘Government U-turn on fraud clampdown’ is unlikely to be quite the kind of headline he had in mind.

john.malpas@legalweek.com