Allyson May chronicles the history of the English criminal trial
and the development of a criminal bar in London between 1750 and
1850. She charts the transformation of the legal process and the
evolution of professional standards of conduct for the criminal bar
through an examination of the working lives of the Old Bailey
barristers of the period. In describing the rise of adversarialism,
May uncovers the motivations and interests of prosecutors,
defendants, the bench, and the state, as well as the often-maligned
"Old Bailey hacks" themselves.
Traditionally, the English criminal trial consisted of a relatively
unstructured altercation between the victim-prosecutor and the
accused, who generally appeared without a lawyer. A criminal bar
had emerged in London by the 1780s, and in 1836 the Prisoners'
Counsel Act recognized the defendant's right to legal counsel in
felony trials and lifted many restrictions on the activities of
defense lawyers. May explores the role of barristers before and
after the Prisoners' Counsel Act. She also details the careers of
individual members of the bar--describing their civil practice in
local, customary courts as well as their criminal practice--and the
promotion of Old Bailey counsel to the bench of that court. A
comprehensive biographical appendix augments this discussion.