Bret Walker SC

speaker

138 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 9 Jun

Bret Walker SC’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.

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Secret Life of Books · Bleak House by Charles Dickens - SLoB Book Club returns! (feat. Bret Walker SC) · 9 Jun 2026 podcast

It is, if I may say so, not a very convincing explanation, bearing in mind that if conscience means a system of values that are meant to be felt by individuals and guide their conduct,

then the same is obviously true of the common law, which says of a contract, for example, promises should be performed.

So leaving aside the propaganda, the key thing by Dickens' time was that there were different courts administering these different bodies of doctrine, all for the one population, all for the one king's justice.

It was, if I may say so, looking back on it, as we're all taught at law school, a monstrous complication to and fro between the courts.

Chancery would send a case off to the common law courts to get a jury to decide a matter of fact, for example.

The common law courts used oral evidence.

The equity courts, the chancery courts did not.

And that's where the money came in.

Because court officers, court administration were paid by fees.

Fees included the volume of copies required.

Copies were compulsory.

And Bob's your uncle.

You've got a monopoly without any pressure at all.

Equity is that body of doctrine that I've tried to explain, which advances its role as being to supplement the common law, the common law being the heart of our inherited law, which is very, very similar, of course, to the law that existed in England and Wales when Dickens wrote.

And it supplements it in the way I've already illustrated.

But it has its own inventions.

and the one that is still extremely alive and has many centuries of lineage is, of course, the trust, which is the imposition on an individual who legally owns property of duties, sometimes very onerous duties, of duties owed to other people called beneficiaries.

And the trust is really the invention of the equity side administered by chancery.

And it's the trust business, the trust created by will, which, of course, is the heart of John Dice and John Dice.

Well, he had every reason to be.

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