The Secret Barrister is a junior barrister specialising in criminal law, and part-time author and blogger.
The law can often feel to the public like an alien and impenetrable world, linked to everyday life only by selective news reportage and artistically-licensed tv dramatisation. This blog aims to bridge that gap by providing a candid, and hopefully accessible, explanation of our criminal justice system, of how it works, and of how, all too often, it doesn’t. It also tries to help to demystify and debunk some of the stranger or more controversial legal stories that make it into the news.
The Secret Barrister has written for the The Times, The Guardian, New Statesman, iNews, Standpoint, Esquire, Counsel Magazine and Solicitors Journal, and is regularly quoted across print and broadcast media, including BBC News, Channel 4 News, The Sun, The Mirror, the Daily Mail, the Huffington Post and the Evening Standard.
In 2016 and 2017, the Secret Barrister was named Independent Blogger of the Year at the Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards. In 2018, the Secret Barrister was named Legal Personality of The Year at the Law Society Awards.
The Secret Barrister is a patron of FRU (Free Representation Unit).
The Secret Barrister’s first book and Sunday Times No.1 Bestseller, “Stories of The Law and How It’s Broken”, was published by Pan Macmillan in March 2018, and was in the top-ten bestseller list for over a year. It won the Books Are My Bag Non Fiction Award 2018, and was shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year and Specsavers Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2018. It is available to buy here.
Their second book, “Fake Law”, was published by Picador in September 2020, and was immediately a Sunday Times bestseller. It is available to buy here.
Their third book, “Nothing But The Truth”, was published by Picador in May 2022, and was immediately a Sunday Times bestseller. It is available to buy here.
In 2020, Channel 4 News produced a four-part documentary series, The Secret Barrister: Disordered Justice. The series can be viewed here.
Please direct any enquiries to Chris Wellbelove at chris@aitkenalexander.co.uk.