Winners of the first Inner Temple Book Prize announced
A distinguished panel of judges, chaired by The Rt. Hon. The Lord Woolf of Barnes, had sifted and considered 79 entries in total for the two prizes. The judging panel was looking for works which make "an outstanding scholarly contribution to the understanding of the law", as administered in England and Wales.
The Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Rix, a member of the judging panel, said of the entries:
"The standard of the books we have read has been very great. In all 67 books were entered for the Main Prize and a further 12 for the Young Author’s Prize. The works had to have been first published within the last three years. The range of works submitted was enormous, ranging from jurisprudence to criminal law, to works of legal history, to treatises and text-books on every possible subject, including cyberspace. We had great difficulties in arriving at our shortlists, and then as much difficulty again to reach our final decisions. And yet, in the end the decisions which we announce tonight were all unanimous."
At the Awards Ceremony on 2 December 2008 at the Inner Temple, The Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Rix announced the winners of the Inn’s new prizes for outstanding legal authorship; and presentations were made to the winning authors by the Treasurer, The Rt. Hon. Sir Anthony May. The £10,000 prize went to Child Abuse: Law and Policy across the boundaries by Laura Hoyano and Caroline Keenan (OUP). The Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Rix said of the winning book:
"Judges have described this as a ‘masterly book on a hugely important subject’, ‘an inspiring achievement’ and ‘an invaluable source of ideas and law, theory and practice’, not only for practitioner and academic but for policy makers and indeed for all concerned with reform and administration of the law. The panel of judges believes that the book will indeed make an outstanding contribution to the formation and understanding of legal policy and thus to the administration of law in this country. They unanimously agree that, of all the fine entries, this book most clearly satisfies the criteria laid down for the award of the prize."
From left to right: The Rt. Hon. Sir Anthony May, Laura Hoyano, Carolyn Keenan, The Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Rix
Citations were given to two highly commended entries:
- Buying Social Justice by Christopher McCrudden (OUP)
- The Law and Economics of Article 82 EC by Robert O’Donaghue and A. Jorge Padilla (Hart)
A Young Author’s Prize was awarded to:
- Fundamentals of Patent Law by Matthew Fisher (Hart) £2,500 prize
The Rt. Hon. Sir Anthony May presents the Young Author’s prize to Matthew Fisher
The prize was launched as part of the celebrations marking the 400th anniversary of the grant of the Royal Charter to Inner Temple and Middle Temple in 1608. The Inner Temple has close links with the many universities from which its student barristers come and the prize is designed to strengthen these academic links. A full feature on the Book Prize will appear in the 2009/10 Yearbook.
