Can`t believe I nearly didn`t read this. I knew, vaguely, about Good Law Project. Knew, vaguely, who Jolyon Maugham was. Thought it might be a bit dry and probably a bit depressing. And thought that nevertheless I should read it. So I did. And soon found out it was neither dry nor, ultimately, depressing though there are some depressing stories in it.
The depressing part of it is how, in order to maintain their status, influence and wealth, the powerful and rich are able to bend and twist and not least afford what should be a tool equally accessible to all. Having explained broadly how the system should work, Maugham examines in some detail how again and again it fails to hold power to account.
So far so disheartening but this is where Good Law Project comes in. Established in 2017 it intially had what Maugham calls a "modest" infrastructure - a bank account, a website and email but also Maugham`s unwavering belief that the law could do better.
At first glance he might have seemed an unlikely campaigner: comfortably off as a tax lawyer, he was a member of the very establishment he started to challenge, whose members it should be noted became very irritated, not to say angry, at what they saw as his betrayal of that club. Maugham also made himself more and more unpopular with politicians and sections of the press and often came under fierce even hostile criticism..
Nonetheless, working with other like-minded campaigners, carefully addressing amongst other things the issue of how to fund their work to maintain independence, Good Law Project is now the biggest legal campaigning group in the country.
Maugham himself comes across as self-deprecating, under no illusion that he and his colleagues are going to change the world overnight nor even that they always get things right. But Bringing Down Goliath is a vital and motivational read and best of all can be put on the bookshelf labelled Hope.
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