THE LEGAL COMPANION

Vincent Powell

Robson Books, £9.99

Taking its lead in style and look from the hugely successful Schott’s Miscellany, The Legal Companion draws together a highly eclectic mix of trivia that has some kind of link to the law.

The reader needs to accept that New Zealand lawyer Vincent Powell draws his definition widely – Geoffrey Chaucer and Henri Rousseau are in a list of famous people who left the law for having previously been customs officers; various parliamentary oddities get in on the grounds that MPs and peers are law-makers; a run-down of famous people who have taken drugs is justified on the basis that they were doing so against the law; while the law of averages and changes to the laws of cricket are also included.


There are also avoidable mistakes – Columbo was a famous TV detective, not lawyer, and quite why Anna and Milly from ‘This Life’ are not included with Miles, Egg and Warren in the same list is anyone’s guess. Equally, there are a few creaky jokes and some of the lists are entirely spurious – former ‘Big Brother’ winner Kate Lawler is one of ten famous people with law names – but that is very much what you are buying into with this kind of book.


The good thing about the genre is that an awful lot of trivia is packed into a small space (a relevant fact is neatly attached to each page number, for example), so you can quickly move on from the less interesting stuff, including the inevitable unusual laws around the world, or the less tasteful, such the league table of serial killers (Harold Shipman is joint top with South American Pedro Alonso Lopez from the 1970s).


Using the UK and US as its main, but by no means only, source of information, The Legal Companion contains a lot of interesting historical information (it kicks off with an explanation of the notch on judges’ wigs), several examples of literature and the law, brief run-downs of legal personalities – Solon of Athens is one you may not have come across but he sounds most admirable in his quest to ensure his laws were the best in the world – quirky cases and points of law, and much, much more.


Small enough to keep on hand while hanging around in a police station or during a dull trial, The Legal Companion offers something for everyone.