Bar, Bench and Land Law

About The Book And Author

Bar, Bench and Land Law is both entertaining and informative. Former Appeals Court judge John P. Bryson tells the history of the development of Sydney's Phillip Street barristers' chambers and recounts amusing anecdotes about the judges he has worked with. He also gives a learned look at English Land Law from medeival times to the present day.

John P Bryson QC is a retired judge and has a strong interest in history. He worked in the Law in Sydney from 1954 and finally retired in 2011. At Sydney Law School the professors took a poor view of him. He practised at the Bar for 20 years, then he was a Supreme Court Judge in Equity, later in the Court of Appeal. His main interest over many decades was getting up early and going to work. He has had nothing to do with novels, dingoes or Azaria Chamberlain; that is a different John Bryson from Melbourne. His parents taught him to read poems and history at random, and he has not ever set foot in a Faculty of Arts or a History Course. He has become very interested in English Law and History in Plantagenet Times, the troubled Late Middle Ages, has given a few History lectures here and there and written a few reminiscences of the legal world early in his career. He has had some of these printed as gifts for friends.