Foreword
| Author | Dr Gerard Hogan SC |
| Pages | 11-12 |
FOREWORD
As
I
have
been
given
the
honour
of
introducing
the
new
Trinity
College
Law Review,
I
may,
perhaps,
be
forgiven
if
on
this special
occasion
I
briefly
detain
the
reader
who
is
eager
to
absorb
the
remarkable diversity
of
writings
contained
in
this
new
edition
with
some
purely personal thoughts
of
my
own
on
the
topic
of
legal
writing. Good legal
writing
is
something
of
an
art
form,
combining
simplicity
of
style
and
elegance
of
expression.
Of
course,
like
all
art
forms,
excellence
to
some
degree
lies in
the
eye
of
the
beholder.
But
if
I
were
pressed
for examples,
I
would
find
it
hard
to
improve
on
the
writings
of
Holmes, Heuston
and
Henchy.
Of
Holmes,
I
need
say
little. Few students
who have
passed
through
my
hands over
the
last
twenty
five years
need
reminding
of
my
enthusiasm
for
the
writings
of
perhaps the greatest
judge
the
common
law
world
has
ever produced.
If
his
notorious decision
in
Buck
v
Bell
(1927)
casts
a
shadow over
his
legacy, then
we
can
remind ourselves
that
in
Posner's
vivid phrase,
he
was
not perfect,
only
great. Three
of
my
favourite
judgments
of
his
were
delivered
well
after his
7 5
th
birthday:
Southern
Pacific
v
Jensen
(1917)("...the
common
law
is
not
a
brooding omnipresence
in
the
sky....");
Gitlow
v
New
York
(1925)("...
eloquence
may
set
fire to
reason...");
United
States
v
Schwimmer
(1929)("...not
free
thought for
those who
agree
with
us,
but
freedom
for
the
thought
that
we
hate"). These
and
other
judgments
represent
the
pinnacle
of
western
legal
writing
and
they
may
never
be
surpassed.
Robert Heuston,
Regius
Professor
from
1970
to
1983,
is
today
an
undeservedly neglected
figure.
Even
in
the
Law
School,
his
name
means
little
to
modem
students. Yet
he
was,
perhaps,
the
greatest
legal
biographer
of
the last
century. Two
brilliant
works come
immediately
to
mind:
Lives
of
the
Lord
Chancellors
1885
to
1940
(1964)
and his
remarkable
essay
"Lord
Denning: The
Man
and
his
Times"
in
Jowell
and
McAuslan,
Lord
Denning.-
The
Judge
and
the
Law
(1984).
The
beautiful, measured prose
of
this
late essay
by
Heuston
stands
in
striking contrast
to the
marked decline
in
the
quality
of
the
judicial
writing
style
of
the
subject
of
the
essay, since
as
he
put
it:
"Denning's
style
had
always
been
unusual:
by
the
mid-
seventies
it was
not
quite
so
admired
as
it
had been."
Seamus Henchy, Judge
of
the
High
Court
1962
to
1972;
Judge
of
the
Supreme
Court,
1972
to
1988
recently
celebrated
his
9 0
th
birthday
with
little
public
fanfare.
Yet
he
was
assuredly
the
most
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