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Johnson hired David despite – or perhaps because of – the fact that David had a few years earlier won two of the most significant constitutional cases that ever took place in the U.K., undermining Johnson’s attempts to circumvent Parliament in his dogged pursuit of Brexit.
David has written very highly regarded books like Advocates and Judges, and later this year his remarkable lectures on advocacy will be published by the Cambridge University Press.
At his lecture in Rome, Lord Pannick addressed one of
the key tenets of the British legal system, the so-called “cab-rank rule,” the principle that anyone, however un- popular, should be and could be represented by the very
best counsel one wants to retain, just as no one in En- gland can be denied access to a cab if they are prepared to pay the fare. Indeed, no society can legitimately claim to be governed by the rule of law that allows this funda- mental principle to be trampled or undermined.
As he explained:
“During the past forty years, I’ve often been asked . . . how can you act for such terrible people? I try to explain that the principle of advocacy is that you are
paid to be argumentative, to be inquisitive, to be in- dignant, to be flattering, to be apologetic as the occa- sion demands and always as persuasive as possible on behalf of your client. The advocate earns his living propounding views to which he does not necessar- ily subscribe. She does this on behalf of clients for whom she may feel admiration, she may feel indiffer- ence, sometimes she feels contempt. You are paid to do a job like the surgeon operating on a patient and your job does not depend on, it cannot be influenced by your views of the clients or the conduct of which they are accused.”
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