Legal Hearing

This time last week I was sitting in Court 2 listening to the Libraries litigation. 

I must say that although Helen Mountfield QC (the library litigants' main representative) has a high reputation in these matters, she didn't seem to live up to it on this occasion.  Indeed her opening on case law, which took up the entirity of the first day, struck me as quite boilerplate.  She seemed to draw quite generically on her experience of Equalities legislation in other cases.  Admittedly, she improved greatly once she got on to the facts of the case, but fell apart badly in answering the Judge's queries on the final day.

Our own QC was, I thought, quite masterly, especially on the last day.  What is all the more remarkable is that she only took up the case late on.  Another QC from the same Chambers had been advising, but once the hearing date was announced he had a clash with another case.  To acquire such a mastery of such a complicated set of issues impresses me no end.

I am optimistic about the outcome, although I wish we could get a judgement sooner.