Cover Image: Confessions of a Briefless Barrister

Confessions of a Briefless Barrister

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Member Reviews

A revealing insight in to the work of a Barrister. Sometimes the technical terms can be a little intricate.
But the book is very interesting and enjoyable overall.

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This is an important book. Because Harry Mitchell is important? Because he has a brilliant and expansive view of what he witnessed, experienced or did in his life? No, we would be barking up the wrong tree if we were looking for such an incisive mind.

What we find is that Harry Mitchell loves the British Empire, loved his job as a legal functionary for British interests in Sierra Leone and India. He did the legal administrative functions for politicians and owners of industry. Loved it, down to the day he retired, and beyond. He even loved doing this in his retirement. Its hard not to enjoy sitting down with Harry Mitchell as he talks about his life, simple and plain and rather lacking in questions that bring any form of self realization or contextual understanding.

Harry Mitchell lacks history. He does not know why things are the way things are, nor does he possess any understanding of the higher ideals about what was trying to be accomplished or why. Its all so much work, that he does his level best to do. Good on Harry Mitchell. Here is the beauty of the book. You see the world through the eyes of someone who neither questions too deeply nor is particularly interested in questioning too deeply.

In the period of time of his professional life British mercenaries ran rampant over Africa, inequality divided the United Kingdom into a fragmented mess of fear and anger and nations and peoples across the planet tried to recover from European Empires (that means Britain too) that stripped them bare, broke their economies and ransacked their resources. As the planet goes to an environmental disaster you would hope people so far up in the hierarchy would have had some clue, but no. Harry Mitchell didn't. So many world problems are just lost on him. To Harry Mitchell everything is just fine, and can't see what all the fuss is about. Reasonable people, that elusive legal fiction "the reasonable man" is the hero of Harry Mitchell's imagination.

This to me is a significant book. If you really want to get to the bottom of what went wrong on a planet where the possibility of success was so obvious and yet we have rode headlong into a disaster, you must start by reading the morally interesting memoires of Harry Mitchell. God bless him and I hope the books sells well.

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Certainly an eye opening book- giving us the reader an idea on what goes on behind closed doors of Harry Mitchell QC profession. Also gives an insight into the background of his life.
An ok read- nothing special
Thank you to both NetGalley and Troubador Publishing ltd for my eARC in exchange for my honest unbiased review

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