Printer FriendlyHaldane Society History
The Sixties to Seventies
By the late 1960s, the Society was re-energised with an influx of young, radical student members, along with the able secretary-ship of Stephen Sedley, now Lord Justice Sedley. Students were campaigning to reform legal education (at the time a very radical demand) and even held sit-ins in the Inns of Court. Conferences were organised protesting against the Labour government’s new immigration laws, bringing together radical lawyers, and on Northern Ireland and civil rights. Many of the Society’s members were involved in setting up law centres. The Society was influenced by the new feminist, black liberation and gay liberation movements.
The Haldane returned to its trade union links, campaigning on health and safety at work and famously organising a delegation of lawyers to the Grunwicks Picket line. The Society’s then president, John Platts-Mills QC, was photographed in his pinstripe suit, haranguing the bemused ranks of police through a megaphone.
In 1978, the Haldane organised the first International Conference on Women in the Law at Cambridge University. For the first time, women lawyers from all political, ethnic and religious backgrounds, came together to discuss legal issues confronting women in society and in the courts of their different legal systems. Today that may seem unremarkable but never before had the men of the Haldane organised the crèche and made the coffee while the women held exclusive sway over the microphone!
