The Practice of Judging

What is it like to be a judge? Can anyone, whatever their background,learn to do it well? In The Practice of Judging, to be published on 12November, Sir Peter Coulson, who retired from the Court of Appeal in Octoberafter twenty-five years as a judge, answers this question from the inside. Thebook also has a foreword by Sir Colin Birss, the incoming Master of the Rolls. Sir Peter sat at every level of the courts judiciary except districtjudge, from Recorder to Lord Justice of Appeal, and was judge in charge of theTechnology and Construction Court. He argues that ‘judgecraft’ can be learnedand taught, and he sets out to write ‘an instruction manual’: how you do it,not why. The book covers running a courtroom, handling counsel, sentencing,giving rulings on the spot and writing judgments, including the fifteen toptips that, as Sir Colin reveals in his foreword, once circulated among judgesin ‘samizdat copies’. Sir Peter also reflects candidly on cases where he believes he didjustice and some where he fell short. Among the former are his two decisionsrefusing the Post Office permission to appeal in the litigation brought by sub-postmasters,which he describes as the decisions of which he is most proud. And he is outspoken about the state of the system. He traces most of itsproblems to twenty-five years of underfunding, describes courts where raindrips into buckets, and proposes practical remedies: pay court staff properly,repair the court estate, and fund 100 criminal pupillages a year. His ‘ten rules for beginners’ run from ‘be yourself’ and ‘be kind’ to‘don’t talk, listen’ - a rule he enforced on himself with a Post-it notereading ‘Shut Up’. His Honor Judge Nigel Bird predicts the rules are ‘destinedto be pinned on judicial noticeboards up and down the land’. Sir Mark Warby,President of the King’s Bench Division, calls the book invaluable reading forany judge. The afterword is by Thomas Grant KC, author of the bestsellingbook Court Number One. For Sir Peter, the conclusion is simple: judging is ‘quite simply, thebest job in the world’.