The Erskine example: reader response

What a pity that Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC saw fit to belittle Erskine and advocacy, the alleged limitations of oral advocacy as an instrument of justice (The Erskine example). Bindman is a solicitor, an able and successful solicitor, who has successfully briefed and supported many fine advocates.

Erskine has been long recognised as our greatest advocate. Brilliant in court, he passionately promoted the integrity and sovereignty of the jury, freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and parliamentary reform. He never shrank from defending unpopular clients such as Tom Paine and Warren Hastings.

"From the moment that any advocate can be permitted to say that he will or will not stand between the Crown and the subject arraigned in the court where he daily sits to practise, from that moment the liberties of England are at an end."

At a time of grave threat to England from the French revolution and the army and navy of Napoleon, when "security" was understandably