Goodman was a role model with feet of clay, says Geoffrey Bindman
The best-known and most reputedly successful solicitors are not necessarily those we would regard as the ideal role model. One who once seemed to have such star quality was Lord Goodman—the “Blessed Arnold” in the Private Eye pantheon.
Joe Haines, press spokesman of prime minister Harold Wilson, once remarked that “if the Almighty ever had need of a lawyer, Arnold Goodman would have been His automatic choice”.
Wilson certainly relied on him for a variety of services, including settling industrial disputes and trying to persuade Rhodesia to stay in the Commonwealth. But he was also called on by Edward Heath when he was prime minister and by Jeremy Thorpe when he was leader of the Liberal Party. Unlike many solicitors he was an instinctive problem-solver. Some called him a fixer, meaning it as a term of abuse, but surely fixing is what solicitors are supposed to do?
problem solving
My first encounter with him was precisely in this role. The
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