Tributes have been paid to Tim Dutton KC, former Bar Council chairman and 'man of uncompromising principle', who died yesterday aged 68 – a decade after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease.
Dutton retired in January after 45 years at the bar, continuing to work 10 years after his diagnosis.
A note on the website of Fountain Court Chambers, which he led from 2008 to 2013, says that he remained in practice ‘at the highest level … defying the expectations of even the most optimistic clinicians’.
Dutton was educated at Repton School and Keeble College, Oxford and called to the bar by Middle Temple in 1979, taking silk in 1998. His general commercial practice focused on regulatory and public law and he was regarded by many as a doyen of the bar on professional conduct.
He sat as a recorder from 2000-17, worked as an arbitrator and chaired high-profile public inquiries, including an investigation in 2009 into how Sport England distributed almost £20 million over eight years to sports’ governing bodies.
After teaching advocacy to lawyers in America, he formed the view that teaching in England 'lacked sophistication' and in 1994 founded the Keble College Advanced International Advocacy Course, which he directed for 10 years.
Dutton was elected as leader of the South-Eastern circuit in 2004, he was chairman of the Bar Council in 2008, and was also chairman of the Association of Regulatory and Disciplinary Lawyers
He married Burmese barrister Sappho Dias and together they founded the Burma Justice Committee to work on re-establishing the rule of law in Burma. In 2015, he was appointed CBE for services to the UK legal system.
In 2014, the same year that he was diagnosed, Dutton founded the Bar Choral Society, which he continued to support after he became too ill to sing.
A tribute posted on his chambers’ website praised Dutton as a ‘outstanding barrister of his generation’ and a ‘tireless champion of the legal profession’.
The statement said: ‘A man of uncompromising principle, Tim brought an extraordinary warmth, humanity and understanding to his dealings with all people. Solicitors and clients sought him out because he was an advocate of the first order who had seen everything before. His juniors loved working with him because he never let the work, however demanding, get in the way of being a decent human being. To his opponents in court he was formidable but unfailingly courteous and fair.’
The statement said: ‘His cheerfulness and optimism in the face of adversity were infectious; time spent talking to Tim could reduce a seemingly intractable problem to manageable proportions. His wisdom, courage and reassuring voice never faltered.
It added: ‘His memory lives on in the countless lawyers whose values have been shaped by his influence and example.’
Paying tribute to Dutton, current bar chair Barbara Mills KC said that he led the profession in a ‘time of enormous change’ and ‘was the perfect person to steer the bar’ through it. Mills said: ‘He leaves a great legacy to the bar in advocacy training, and we are immensely grateful to him for the time and energy he put into the bar through the many leadership roles he held.
Dutton’s motto, according to a profile on his college website, was ‘treat every day as if it were the last”.
He is survived by his wife Sappho and their daughter Pia.
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