One of the greatest of all Enlish common lawyers, Lord Atkin it was who asked the question in Donoghue v. Stevenson 'Who then in law is my neighbour?' which became the foundation of the whole modern law of negligence. His courageous dissent in the wartime detention case of Liversidge v. Anderson is now recognized as a historic stand on principle. This book contains absorbing accounts of the background to these two great cases, as well as an assessment of their significance in the legal history of this century.
English jurist James Richard Atkin (b. 1867) is best known for his foundation of the modern law of negligence, and his dissent in a wartime detention case. London lawyer Lewis examines his career not chronologically but by the principal themes of his decisions. He emphasizes his home life and upbringing in the Welsh countryside the traces his values primarily to a liberal spirit. The legal biography was first published in 1983 by Butterworths; a second preface has been added. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
One of the greatest of all English common lawyers, Lord Atkin, asked the question in Donoghue v. Stevenson, Who then in law is my neighbor , which became the foundation of the whole modern law of negligence. His courageous dissent in the wartime detention case of Liversidge v. Anderson is now recognized as a historic stand on principle. This book contains absorbing accounts of the background to these two great cases, as well as an assessment of their significance in the legal history of this century. It is the only legal biography of its kind. Instead of taking the conventional narrative form it treats individually the principal themes of Lord Atkin's decisions and illuminates some lesser known aspects of his work including the critical series of Canadian constitutional appeals in 1936.
