Profile
Profile:
Jeffrey Forrest (MA eds) T
wo heavyweights of the City of Westminster and Holborn Law Society, Prof Sara Chandler QC (Hon) and Jeffrey Forrest, both past presidents, no less, found time in between their frenetic schedules to sit down with each other and reflect on some of Jeffrey’s memories of legal life. Sara and Jeffrey, both also being longstanding council members of the Law Society of England and Wales, amongst a panoply of inspiring volunteer and charitable positions, discuss protests, pro bono and international connections. Sara Chandler: Did you always want to be a lawyer? Jeffrey Forrest: Yes and no. I certainly don’t remember wanting to be a train driver or an astronaut but I do remember when I was 11 going with my older brother to the Old Bailey with an elderly visiting cousin from Seattle. (I think she was 21). The officer at the door to the public galleries warned her that it was “not suitable for the young’un as he might be corrupted”. I was disappointed but we went to St Paul’s instead and climbed right up to the very top, way above the Whispering Gallery. I don’t know how I got a reputation in my family as a putative lawyer – I’m the first one – but in my early teens people started giving me legal biographies and autobiographies – Marshall Hall, Patrick Hastings and so on. Perhaps they thought the law might suit my argumentative personality. Growing up, there were three London evening papers and just one black and white TV channel and hanging wasn’t finally abolished until 1969. Those papers were full of murder trials and salacious divorce hearings so in those days there was a certain fascination for people in what went on in the courts. That maybe piqued my interest. I’m a keen observer and I am probably a frustrated journalist. I applied to Cambridge to read English and was rejected, not least because I hadn’t passed the required Latin O Level. With a bit of parental steering I applied to London University to read law (“always useful to have a profession”) and was offered a place by LSE and KCL. I chose the former, probably because of its radical reputation. After I graduated I tried to escape my eventual fate and headed west, to America, where I had spent time before university. One of the things I ended up doing was helping to organise the 1969 Daily Mail Air Race between the Post Office Tower in London and the Empire State Building in New York. Through that, on my return I was offered a management trainee job with Associated Newspapers in Blackfriars. I kept bumping into an LSE chum who happened to be articled to the senior partner of a local firm of solicitors. She gave him her hand in marriage and he gave me articles (at £12 a week) and thus my legal career commenced. SC: What were the issues that radicalised the LSE students at the time? Did you join in the student protests? JF: That’s a very long story. At the LSE it actually started in 1966 as an issue of freedom of expression when the Students Union
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president was suspended for writing to the Times about the appointment of Dr Walter Adams as Director of the school but of course it escalated and ended up as part of the Vietnam War opposition and the international events of 1968, the year we were busy studying for our finals. As to my personal involvement, as they say, if you remember the 60s you weren’t there. And I was there. SC: When CWHLS used to organise a Pro Bono Fair on the Common Room of the law Society, you were honoured with the first Pro Bono Award. Where did you do pro bono and what difference did it make? JF: That was actually the 2004 Awards Dinner of the Solicitors Pro Bono Group, now more familiarly known as Law Works, and receiving the Lifetime Award was a bit embarrassing, not only because, as I said then, I hadn’t finished my life (I’m happy to say I still haven’t), but because I know I’ve done so much less than so many others. I think it happened because I had previously spoken up at a seminar to say that pro bono culture should inhabit one’s whole professional career and, indeed, before and after. I started as a student at the LSE, attending advice sessions at Islington Town Hall – then called The Poor Man’s Lawyer. This was just before the first Law Centres. Later, in articles, I participated in advice sessions at the City of London CAB. And in practice, for a significant part of my career I did pro bono work where I felt there was need and no other choice. In some cases I was too busy (read disorganised) to apply for Green Form extensions or to remember to lodge payment applications. And in addition, for some years I was Honorary Legal Adviser at Pimlico CAB. SC: You were President of CWHLS in 2004-5. What did leading the society mean to you? JF: It was of course an honour and I had a very enjoyable year particularly in visiting other local societies in other parts of this country – and beyond. City of Westminster merged with Holborn 20 years ago and both previous societies were quite young compared with some that are hundreds of years old. Do you remember that you and I approached the late Sir Donald Sinden at the reception after the memorial service for Colin Prestige (who was incidentally the first president of the Law Society’s Junior Lawyers)? Sir Donald remarked on the paradox that acting is a collaborative but lonely profession whereas the law is collegiate although (often) adversarial. And that’s it – as the pressures of legal life increase, contact and friendship with our colleagues becomes so valuable. I’ve made so many good friends and obtained so much good advice – not to mention helpful second opinions. SC: You have represented Westminster on Law Society Council since 2005. What have been the issues that affect WHLS members most? JF: Probably for too long! It’s difficult to list the most relevant issues. It sometimes seems like the same issues keep coming around again and again. As we used to say at the pictures “isn’t
