So, my trip to London was really fun. I "minded the gap" in the tube and train and stood inside one of the fun red phonebooths:
I paid close attention when crossing the street (look left, no, wait, look right?). I've also started using the words "loo," "queue" and "nappies." But I digress...
My lectures at LSE were a lot of fun. I enjoyed meeting many of the international students in the LLM program and the law students in the undergrad program too. We talked about copyright litigation, podcasting, and some of the differences between the law of England & Wales vs. US law on copyright. My sight-seeing was fairly limited (and some might say a bit law-geeky). For instance, I spent one afternoon at the Royal Courts of Justice. It was totally fascinating. The building alone is beautiful:
After getting past the traditional dress of the wig/coif-wearing barristers and judges (more info here), the thing that I found most interesting is that in the crminal courtrooms the defendants actually sit in a CAGE behind bars. Really. I so wish I could have taken a photo to post here, but photos were not allowed in the courtrooms. The relevant wikipedia page has some photos, but does not contain any photos of the inside of the criminal courtrooms. So I will try to describe it in more detail here.
Basically, the set up has the judges on a rather high broad bench, and the defendant's seeting area is to the side, at the same level as the judges, facing inward towards the center of the room. The seeting area is a rectangular box with the bottom half made of wood, and black bars (like a jail cell) going all the way up to the ceiling. Down from the bench and defendant "box", sits what appeared to me as judicial clerks and a court reporter. The judges bench and the clerks seating face the center of the room. Then there is a gap, and in the first row of seating facing the judges. In that row sits the prosecutors and defense counsel on opposite ends of that row (I think there's an aisle down the middle). Behind them, one row higher, sit some assistants, perhaps law clerks, junior barristers etc. to help the barristers. And behind them, at successively higher rows of benches, are the gallery seating open for spectators. So the set up isn't really all that different from a US court, except for the cage that the defendant sits in. In the US, the defendant typically sits with her attorney at the counsel table. (In the US, however, defendants often wear prison uniforms and I think they are sometimes wearing shackle when brought into the courtroom.)
My other site seeing wasn't quite as, um, judicial. I made it briefly to the National Portrait Gallery and did some holiday shopping near Piccadilly Squire (though the prices seemed outrageously high there and frankly, on-line shopping is the way to go, isn't it?). And after my week in London, I went out to a quintessential English village, Whitchurch-on-Thames, to visit a good friend who had just had a baby.
All in all, the trip was really great. I'm very thankful for Elizabeth Townsend-Gard's invitation to speak at LSE, which made this whole trip possible.