Reviews

There’s no denying that Jodie Comer's West End début, brought to cinemas yesterday by National Theatre Live, is electrifying. From the moment she walks on stage as Tessa, a confident criminal defence lawyer on the verge of greatness at the London bar, Comer demands nothing less than rap

Christopher Stanley, litigation consultant at KRW LAW LLP in Belfast, offers a timely review of a new book documenting the campaign for victims and survivors of Magdalene laundries. For almost 15 years I have practised law predominantly concerned with addressing the human rights deficit created by t

Fed up of endlessly trawling through Netflix for something decent to watch? We’ve decided to help you out with occasional recommendations.

Barrister and lecturer Ruth Cannon recommends a new book on the funding of the Irish war of independence. There is a saying that money isn't everything, but everything requires money. The new counter-state set up by Sinn Féin in 1919 certainly did, if only to pay judicial salaries in its alte

Christopher Stanley, litigation consultant at Belfast-based KRW LAW LLP, reviews a new textbook on public law. As an English lawyer practising in Ireland – north and south – on a range of issues including the legacy of the conflict and the mother and baby homes scandal, to ask to review

Scottish silk and chair of the Tumbling Lassie Committee, Alan McLean QC, takes a look at a new book on modern slavery.

Kapil Summan, editor of our sister publication Scottish Legal News, reviews Trials of the State: Law and the Decline of Politics by Jonathan Sumption. Though apt to be caricatured as some sort of anti-judge in the post-prorogation world, iconoclast jurist Jonathan Sumption—in this, h

Irish Legal News editor Connor Beaton assesses Mike Chinoy's new biography of Irish human rights lawyer Kevin Boyle. An accidental pioneer of international human rights law, Kevin Boyle would be furious if he was alive today – not only at prevailing injustices around the world, but also at con

Barrister Andrew McKeown critically examines the proposals put forward by legal tech expert Professor Richard Susskind OBE in his latest book. Online Courts and the Future of Justice is a fascinating read for lawyers and non-lawyers alike. It is clear that Professor Susskind is sincerely interested

Scots lawyer and author Willie McIntyre was highly impressed with Scottish advocate Stephen O'Rourke's debut novel. I was fortunate enough to be sent an advance reader copy of Stephen O’Rourke’s historical novel, The Crown Agent, which I raced through one Sunday afternoon recently; it&r

For the last four years, the dome of the Four Courts in the heart of Dublin's legal quarter has been obscured by scaffolding, a bleak reminder of the damage it sustained in the opening salvo of the Irish Civil War nearly a century ago. Though most lawyers have seen first-hand the building's enduring

Director Joe Berlinger's new Ted Bundy biopic arrives in cinemas and on Sky Cinema today amid a storm of controversy over its casting of former teen heart-throb Zac Efron as the notorious murderer, rapist and necrophile who killed at least 30 women in the 1970s. The film, described by Berlinger as a

Graham Ogilvy is disappointed by Mike Leigh’s newly released epic Peterloo. Peterloo, the brutal massacre inflicted on a Manchester crowd demanding political reform in 1819, was a milestone in the lengthy and, some would say, continuing, struggle to establish democracy in Britain and one of th

Dublin solicitor Wendy Lyon examines the new book by sex workers and activists Juno Mac and Molly Smith ahead of its Irish launch events in Cork tonight and Dublin tomorrow. From its striking cover – designed to resemble the outside of a Soho sex shop – and provocatively punny title, one

It’s hard to believe only ten years have passed since touch screen phone keyboards entered the mainstream, sweeping away the misery of millions who otherwise had to type messages with a number pad. Unfortunately for BlackBerry and its iconic QWERTY keyboard, the touch screen revolution also h