Sir Neil Lawson (8 April 1908 – 26 January 1996) was a British

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...

and High Court judge.

Life

He was the son of Robb Lawson and his wife Edith Marion Usherwood, and was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

at the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wal ...

in 1929. Lawson was a member of the Labour Party and the

Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers is a socialist and legal campaigning organisation in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1930 to provide legal support to the then Labour government. The Society was named after Viscount Haldane, a Liber ...

. He came to the notice of

MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Go ...

in 1932 when he acted for the ''Daily Worker''. The following year, he was closely involved with D N Pritt in the legal arguments about those falsely accused by the Nazis for the

Reichstag fire The Reichstag fire (german: Reichstagsbrand, ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of ...

. MI5's lack of sophistication in recording this has led to erroneous suggestions that Lawson defended

Georgi Dimitrov Georgi Dimitrov Mihaylov (; bg, Гео̀рги Димитро̀в Миха̀йлов), also known as Georgiy Mihaylovich Dimitrov (russian: Гео́ргий Миха́йлович Дими́тров; 18 June 1882 – 2 July 1949), was a Bulgarian ...

in court. In fact the Communist leader defended himself. But Lawson did help Pritt, who acted as the Chairman of a high-profile international counter-trial of judicial persons in a Commission of Inquiry in London from 21–28 September 1933, and, by 1938 he was Secretary of the

National Council for Civil Liberties Liberty, formerly, and still formally, called the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), is an advocacy group and membership organisation based in the United Kingdom, which challenges unjust laws, protects civil liberties and promotes hu ...

(now

Liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...

). Lawson

took silk In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel ( post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister or ...

in 1955. In 1957 he began providing legal advice to the rulers of Malaya of the

Federation of Malaya The Federation of Malaya ( ms, Persekutuan Tanah Melayu; Jawi script, Jawi: ) was a federation of what previously had been British Malaya comprising eleven states (nine Malay states and two of the British Empire, British Straits Settlements, P ...

and later he was also the legal advisor to the

Sultan of Brunei The sultan of Brunei is the monarchical head of state of Brunei and head of government in his capacity as prime minister of Brunei. Since independence from the British in 1984, only one sultan has reigned, though the royal institution dates bac ...

in 1963 on constitutional matters.The National ArchivesNeil LAWSON: British. A barrister and a Communist Party member from about 1931
/ref> Lawson was appointed a Justice of the High Court (Queen's Bench Division) in 1971, receiving the customary

knighthood A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...

. He retired from the bench in 1983.

References

External links

* Time magazine May 13, 1940 * Richard Osley, The

files
Revealed: how spies trailed Sir Neil Lawson suspected of Communist sympathies
Retirement

Camden New Journal The ''Camden New Journal'' is a British independent newspaper published in the London Borough of Camden. It was launched by editor Eric Gordon (who died on 5 April 2021, aged 89) in 1982 following a two-year strike at its predecessor, the ''Ca ...

, Published, 1 September 2011 Year of birth uncertain 20th-century King's Counsel 1996 deaths Knights Bachelor Members of the Inner Temple Honorary Fellows of the London School of Economics Queen's Bench Division judges 1908 births Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War II {{UK-law-bio-stub

Life

See also

References

External links