Jodie Cheng Liu
2020 Temple Bar Scholar Report
Due to the pandemic, this year’s Temple Bar program—a four-week immersion course in the British legal system—began with an uncharacteristic lack of fanfare. In lieu of the elaborate, who’s-who Westminster Abbey ceremony that marks the Opening of the Legal Year, we attended a small group dinner overlooking the Thames. As we shared how grateful we were for the chance to come together safely after a year and a half of quarantine conditions, we wondered at the same time how the program would unfold given the restrictions. And indeed, over the course of the next several weeks, we were reminded often of the ways in which the pandemic had made this year’s program an aberration from the norm. Yet, as we came to appreciate, the unusual conditions also brought into sharper relief a vital exercise of the program: reflecting on how Britain’s storied legal traditions have responded to watershed moments in history and the constantly changing dynamics that give rise to legal disputes.
Despite the numerous pandemic precautions, there was no shortage of diverse experiences to soak in. First up in the program was a weeklong crash lesson in the British legal system, taught by myriad judges and prominent legal figures who provided masked tours of legal London’s highlights. Ambling through brick-lined alleys and stone halls, we learned to parse the difference between solicitors and barristers, chancery cases and commercial cases, House of Lords and House of Commons. We probed how Britain’s very different system of legal costs, under which the losing party typically pays for the prevailing party’s attorney fees, affects the nature of the disputes that advance to the court system. And we ate our fair share of fish and chips at the dining halls of the Inns of Court, professional barristers’ associations that also serve as physical spaces for barristers to socialize, dine, and take training courses.
The groundwork laid during our first week came in handy our second and third weeks, when I shadowed barristers from the chambers 7 King's Bench Walk and Fountain Court Chambers. Because the pandemic limited the number of in-person court hearings, there were fewer opportunities to observe the barristers in their natural element: donning a wig and commanding a courtroom. Still, what I witnessed left no doubt as to the rigorous nature of court hearings, which, I was amazed to learn, customarily last for days. Beyond courtroom, the barristers showed me papers from their cases and discussed how they would analyze the issues. In response to my remarks that certain legal terms and doctrines were foreign to me, they explained how those concepts developed over the course of Britain’s long legal history, dating back to the Magna Carta.
Evidence of that history is scattered throughout legal London, which I spent several evenings exploring after I finished up at the barristers’ chambers. Nestled in the heart of the city between the fast-paced dynamics of the theater district and the Baroque dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, legal London is located rather aptly: Over the centuries, it has been the site of countless British lawyers' efforts to adapt ancient legal traditions to the ever-evolving demands of modern life. Indeed, legal London at times feels quite literally like a bridge between the present and the past. While convenience stores and coffee shops line the main street that cuts through legal London, narrow alleys veer away from the street to reveal what might appear like Dickens-era snapshots. Cobblestone courtyards and manicured gardens are flanked by stately barristers' chambers and the Inns of Court, complete with vaulted dining halls and stained-glass libraries. Tying the scene together is the medieval Temple Church, which first welcomed barristers into the area centuries ago with favorable land leases and continues to welcome barristers each week with services. The courts, too, are an amalgam of old and new. Nowadays, commercial disputes are largely heard in the modern Rolls Building, equipped with the latest courtroom technologies. But it's impossible to miss the sprawling Victorian Gothic complex that is the Royal Courts of Justice, home to nearly twenty courtrooms and many more historical trials. As we navigated this pocket of London, we came to learn how each of these buildings has rich stories to tell, from the Middle Temple hall where Shakespeare's Twelfth Night was staged for the first time, to the old-school wig shop that has supplied barristers’ wigs for centuries.
For all the antiquity that marks legal London, one of the legal system's newest additions is actually the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, where we spent the fourth week of the program as guests of the Justices. Before the Supreme Court's establishment in 2009, the highest court of the land had comprised certain designated members of the House of Lords, who also exercised legislative powers as members of Parliament. With the establishment of a new supreme institution in 2009, however, came a fresh opportunity to consider the role the highest court was to play in the law and in society. One remarkable consequence of that process was the level of engagement the Supreme Court has with the public. As we learned, the Justices regularly participate in question-and-answer sessions with high-school students, to help broaden public awareness about how the Court operates and connect younger generations to the law. We were also lucky to be at the Court when the Justices held a ceremony and reception honoring private citizens who have assisted law enforcement in matters that ultimately made their way to the courts. Needless to say, the time and care the Justices took to speak individually to members of the public through these events left a lasting impression on us.
Perhaps it shouldn't have come as a surprise, then, that the Justices’ generosity extended to us as well. Throughout the week, Lord Reed—the President of the Supreme Court and the Justice who hosted me—brought me into the fold of substantive case deliberations and shared with me his unvarnished views on the oral arguments presented by counsel. Likewise, the Justices’ judicial assistants (their equivalent of judicial law clerks) patiently answered our many undoubtedly elementary questions over lunch. Frankly, we were not prepared for how much access we were given or how much time the Justices and judicial assistants made in their demanding schedules for us—novice lawyers from a different legal background who had no real ability to help them sort through their difficult cases. But we were deeply grateful at every turn.
I want to thank all who made this experience come together under the most trying and unpredictable of circumstances. Cindy Dennis and her colleagues at the American Inns of Court worked tirelessly to adapt the program to pandemic-safe conditions while ensuring that we were able to make the most of our time there. Numerous judges and legal figures moved around the many things on their plates to provide us an interactive education of the British legal system that no textbook could reproduce. The barristers of 7 King’s Bench Walk and Fountain Court Chambers shared a wealth of insights into a profession traditionally open to a select few. Lord Reed and his judicial assistant sacrificed valuable work time to walk me through the inner workings of the Supreme Court. And lastly, my fellow Temple Bar and Pegasus Scholars took every care to make sure that we could all safely enjoy this truly memorable exploration of British legal culture.
Jodie Cheng Liu is a clerk for Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the Supreme Court of the United States. Liu traces her interest in international law back to childhood visits to her grandparents in rural China, where she saw that individuals and communities harmed by others often had no legal recourse. After graduating summa cum laude from Columbia University in 2012, she earned a law degree magna cum laude in 2015 from Harvard Law School, where she served as deputy executive editor of the Harvard International Law Journal. During law school, she worked on international human rights in Hungary and examined patent laws’ impact on pharmaceutical development in India. She worked on international legal issues and national security at the Brookings Institution before becoming a clerk for Judge Debra Ann Livingston of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York and Judge Patricia Ann Millett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.