header-logo header-logo

A winter’s tale

12 January 2024 / Roger Smith
Issue: 8054 / Categories: Features , Profession
printer mail-detail
152788
Roger Smith attempts to escape the law by turning to agrarian pursuits

Once upon a time—for this is a folk tale as well as a true personal story—an Allen & Overy-trained litigator and public law expert took up an allotment in an estuary town in Essex. As he grew into his 60s, the plot—located on the appropriately named Arcadia Road—took more of his attention. As his emotional confrontation with the government of the day receded, the attraction grew of a gentler world of vegetables, fruit and nature’s fecundity. The tiger’s growl of the law reduced to a soft purr. Until one day it howled again in a reminder that the law and the constitution infuse all aspects of our life, even the harmless pursuit of a bucolic semi-retirement.

The allotments had been given to the local council in the 1920s by a well-wisher hoping to assist servicemen returning from the war. Until recently, the council’s website proudly proclaimed its ownership ever since of the 257-plot site. However, a decade ago, a local history

If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now to read this content
If you are already a subscriber sign in
...or Register for two weeks' free access to subscriber content

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Mourant—Stephen Alexander

Mourant—Stephen Alexander

Jersey litigation lead appointed to global STEP Council

mfg Solicitors—nine trainees

mfg Solicitors—nine trainees

Firm invests in future talent with new training cohort

360 Law Group—Anthony Gahan

360 Law Group—Anthony Gahan

Investment banking veteran appointed as chairman to drive global growth

NEWS
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
back-to-top-scroll