Lord Goldsmith
Lord Goldsmith QC, PC was the longest serving Labour Attorney-General in history. Encouraged by his solicitor father, he studied law at Cambridge prior to his call to the Bar in 1972. Lord Goldsmith went on to develop a successful commercial, corporate and international litigation practice at Fountain Court Chambers, taking silk at the early age of 37. In 1995 he became the youngest ever Chairman of the Bar and in the subsequent year founded the Bar Pro Bono Unit (of which he remains President). Five years later, Lord Goldsmith became Tony Blair’s second Attorney-General. He resigned the appointment in June last year and now works with US firm Debevoise & Plimpton as head of its European litigation practice. He spoke to KB about some of the controversies and successes of his years in Government. Continue reading “Lord Goldsmith”
Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Imran Khan made his debut in first class cricket at the age of sixteen. He soon moved to England where he combined studying PPE at Oxford with his burgeoning international cricketing career. In 1992 his career reached its zenith when he led his country to victory in the Cricket World Cup. On retirement, he turned his focus to social work, establishing Pakistan’s first cancer hospital in the memory of his late mother and serving as a UNICEF Special Representative. In 1996 he entered the political fray, founding the Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) party, which he still leads. He is a fierce critic of the Musharraf regime and boycotted last month’s elections in protest at the declaration of emergency rule. KB caught up with him just before the elections. 
An international lawyer and currently a partner at DLA Piper in London, Miriam Gonzalez previously worked in the World Trade Organisation and the European Commission. A mother of two, she is married to the recently elected leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg. Her areas of expertise are the telecommunications industry and European competition and trade law and policy. 
Remember Sesame Street? You learnt your 123s and your ABCs along with your Zees (hopefully someone was there to inform you of the correct pronunciation). Well just when you thought you had outgrown that show… Avenue Q is the West End musical that will get you excited over puppets all over again! 
Amber Marks was born in London and spent the first years of her life with her parents Howard and Judy Marks on the run from the law. After Howard’s time in Brixton prison in the late seventies and early eighties, they travelled round the world before settling in the Spanish island of Mallorca. When Amber was ten, Howard and Judy were incarcerated in the United States for cannabis importation. Amber won the Robert Graves Commemorative Poetry Prize in 1995. She studied law at the London School of Economics, where she edited the LSE law journal. She won a scholarship to attend Bar school and secured a pupillage at 3 Raymond Buildings, a leading criminal set of chambers. She practised at the criminal bar for three years before joining the Government Legal Service where she worked as a lawyer in the Criminal Appeal Office. She left the GLS after two years and is now a freelance journalist and academic. She has published articles on surveillance, police powers and the rule of law in Surveillance and Society, the Guardian and The Register. She has given lectures and speeches at charity events and academic conferences. She teaches law at King’s College London. 
Alan Dashwood is an expert in European Union Law and combines his thriving practice at the Bar with a professorship at Cambridge. He is fluent in English, French and Italian and acts mostly for the UK Government. We are fortunate to have him as the judge of the inaugural King’s Bench Essay Prize. He spoke to Hannah Turner. 
Matt O’Connor is the former marketing executive who founded Fathers 4 Justice - the self-styled ‘Suffragents’ - who have made waves in the national and international media in recent years: scaling Buckingham Palace and the Royal Courts of Justice dressed as Batman and Robin, storming the lobby of the Lord Chancellor’s Department en masse dressed as Father Christmas and flour-bombing the previous Prime Minister in the Chamber of the House of Commons all in the name of fathers’ rights. He has been variously described as “like Gordon Ramsay with Tourette’s” and as “a national folk hero” and recently announced that he wants to be your next mayor… 
Alex Carlile has certainly lived a rich and varied life. A King’s alumnus, he took silk at the age of just thirty-six and is now Head of Chambers at 9-12 Bell Yard, a Deputy High Court Judge, a Liberal Democrat peer and the independent reviewer of terror legislation. I met him in the foyer of Southwark Crown Court. 
Moazzam Begg spent just over three years in extra-judicial detention in Guantánamo Bay and other US detention camps. He was subjected to over three hundred interrogations and narrowly avoided being sent to torture camps in Egypt and Libya. In 2005, he was released without charge, compensation or even an apology and today remains subject to a control order. It is the sort of treatment that could radicalise the most placid of moderates. Yet when I met Moazzam, I found him to be rational, eloquent and, most ironically, a staunch advocate of traditional ‘Western’ freedoms. 
Olivia greets me looking effortlessly sexy. Wearing skinny jeans, boots and a loose fitting cashmere sweater, it is not the outfit which wears her, but she who wears the outfit.