Lawyers and the Public Good

Alan Paterson is Professor of Law and Director of the Centre for Professional Legal Studies at Strathclyde University. He is also the Chair of the International Legal Aid Group. As research adviser to the Scottish Legal Aid Board he has been responsible for the training and monitoring aspects of the peer review programme of quality assurance for legal aid lawyers in Scotland. He served as a member of the Council of the Law Society of Scotland from 2000 to 2008 and as a founding member of the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland from 2002 to 2008. In 2008 he was appointed as an inaugural member of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission and in the following year he was awarded the OBE for services to legal education and the law.

'This book addresses the role of lawyers in pursuing the public good. By revealing how judges of the House of Lords and Supreme Court approach their task, Alan Paterson has contributed greatly to the transparency of the judicial process in our top court, and thereby advanced the public good in his own right.' David Feldman, Rouse Ball Professor of English Law, University of Cambridge

• 1. Introduction: determining the public good; 2. Professionalism reassessed: what now for lawyers?; 3. Access to justice: whither legal aid?; 4. Judges and the public good: reflections on the last Law Lords; 5. Conclusion: where next?