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Solicitors and the Wider Community. By David Podmore. (Cambridge Studies in Criminology No. 43.) [London: Heinemann. 1980. xvii, 208 and (Index) 4 pp. £12·00 net.]

THIS book examines the extra-professional activities of solicitors in political and non-political community affairs. It is to be argued, says the author, that because of aspects of their legal training and practice, solicitors are eminently suited to perform such a role in society. If indeed this be so, there are questions thereby posed that need to be answered. What is the extent to which they do participate in such extra professional activities? What are the motives behind such activities? Are solicitors a body which presents a uniform image in this respect? Does the extent of activity vary depending on the type of practice the solicitor has, and how large and where situated the practice is? The book proceeds usefully to illuminate the relationship between the participation of a solicitor in private practice in community activities and politics and the size and location of his practice. The author considers that the solicitors' profession is far from homogeneous (as perhaps might be assumed by an outsider) and is in fact characterised by a considerable degree of stratification. This book is, then, a differential view of the involvement of solicitors in community affairs. The author examines the rise of the solicitors' profession, considers its present size and differentiation in some detail and then goes on to look at characteristics of lawyers that are relevant to the thesis under discussion. Those characteristics, interestingly, do in fact bear out the suitability of the solicitor to perform this sort of public role. A few should be enumerated. First, the solicitor's mode of behaviour, both in relation to his client and the public is governed by a strict code of conduct and professional ethics. The Law Society's A Guide to the Professional Conduct of Solicitors (1974) runs to 156 pages of rules of etiquette and professional conduct, breach of which is liable to be attended with sanctions imposed by the Professional Purposes Committee of the Law Society and, in the more serious of cases, by the Statutory Disciplinary Tribunal. This code of behaviour tends naturally to colour a solicitor's behaviour, so that he may often be labelled as a figure of responsibility and propriety in the community.