Under The Wig – William Clegg [Review]

I grew up watching crime documentaries, and I must have watched just about every gritty crime drama and murder mystery out there. To this day I am told regularly that I should pursue a career in law (hopefully because they think I would be good at it, and not as a quippy response to my argumentative nature). I do enjoy these types of non-fiction reads, for the education that they provide about the processes and procedures of the British legal system, the personal experiences of the individuals involved, and the unprecedented insight the memoirs provide into a process that is otherwise hidden.

I was recommended this book having finished The Secret Barrister and Fake Law, both written by The Secret Barrister. In comparison to those it is certainly more accessible and less technical, an intentional decision on Clegg’s part. SB’s books, particularly the first but to a large extent the sequel too, are about the state of the profession and the criminal justice system, dispelling common myths, and his take on how future governments can work to solve the varying issues he highlights. Clegg’s debut book takes an alternative approach, as the chapters alternate between anecdotes of high profile murder cases he has worked on and his journey to becoming a successful barrister and his later appointment as Queen's Counsel. Along the way he provides answers to common questions, by myth-busting and highlighting changes in the profession in his many years in the profession, and some of the methods and tactics he has deployed in the courtroom. 

As it is not anonymous he does hold back at times, in his opinions and anecdotes. There are only few occasions where he provides strong opinions about aspects of the legal profession, but they come across as grudges and gripes rather than any well thought out analyses (in stark contrast to SB), and the information from anecdotes divulged is based predominantly on what is already public knowledge (this is not entirely his fault, as he was forced to cut sections of the book that discussed confidential clients’ cases). Despite this he does name drop high profile cases, and the insight is still useful - often I could recall the reporting of some of the cases he mentions, and how key details were missing from the news reports, drastically altering the public reaction. The most high profile case he discusses is his defence of Barry George at his retrial, the man who was originally convicted of the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando.

The detailed recollection of key trials in his professional career are interspersed with light hearted stories from his childhood to the day he had taken silk. These stories range from the irrelevant to the intrinsically important; sharing a hotel with Kier Starmer and demanding fresh toast in the mornings, for example, would be an illustration of the former. This sprinkling of seemingly irrelevant information humanises what is otherwise an alien, and often times archaic, process. All of this helps to break up what could have been a dry block of information. In that sense it has an essence of Richard Shepherd’s “Unnatural Causes”.

The chapters are not as long as I expected from a non-fiction book of this type (usually about 25+ pages each). Instead the book is separated reasonably into digestible chunks. It was very easy to read, it isn’t particularly long, and its minimal use of overtly technical language means it requires no pre reading to fully benefit from every word. Regardless of whether you have read SB’s books or not, whether or not you are interested in law, if you are just a viewer of crime documentaries or a training barrister, I think there is something for everyone to learn in here and I would certainly recommend giving it a go.