Edmund Lawson, QC – a tribute

Edmund Lawson, who was an active, generous and much-valued friend of the Nash Ensemble, died of a stroke on 26th March 2009.  This tribute is written both to express our thanks to him and our deep regret that he should have been taken away at the cruelly early age of sixty.

Edmund was born in Norwich in 1948.  He attended City of Norwich School and then read law at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, graduating in 1970, being called to the Bar by Gray’s Inn in 1971 and taking silk in 1988.

By any standards, Edmund’s career at the bar was brilliantly successful.  His many laurels include defending the police officers charged in the aftermath of the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six trials, advising the Metropolitan Police in connection with the Diana, Princess of Wales inquest and the shooting of Jean-Charles de Menezes and acting as leading counsel to the Stephen Lawrence enquiry.  He successfully defended Ian Maxwell in the prosecution of the Maxwell brothers after the destruction of their notorious father’s empire, and stockbrokers Phillips & Drew in the Blue Arrow rights issue trial.

It is comparatively rare for barristers to make their mark at the highest level in both the criminal and civil fields.  Whilst Edmund’s most famous cases were no doubt criminal law cases, he was also much sought after to advise and act in civil cases involving a criminal element – for example, defending accountants sued for negligence as auditors of companies brought down by the fraud of management.  He was one of only a handful of barristers to be awarded a starred rating in the fields of both criminal and civil law by Chambers & Partners Directory of the Legal Profession.

In 2006, Edmund was one of the founding members of Cloth Fair Chambers, a set comprising seven QCs, with no junior barristers or pupils, concentrating on the most demanding and complex commercial and organised crime cases.  It was the Nash Ensemble’s good fortune that Edmund, through his love of music and enthusiasm for the work of the group, brought Cloth Fair Chambers in as a Corporate Friend of the Nash in 2008, as well as himself becoming a Commissioning Friend.

Edmund played the viola, had a keen interest in chamber music, about which he knew a good deal, and was a very perceptive judge of quality.  These attributes showed to particular advantage, so far as the Nash were concerned, when Edmund attended an experimental workshop to test the potential usefulness of rehearsal and performance of chamber music as a tool for senior business managers in developing teamwork skills.  His understanding of the way in which virtuoso musicians combine their brilliance as individuals to produce chamber music of the highest quality quickly led him to see the relevance of this process in the business context.  From that point forward, Edmund effectively led the discussion among his fellow guests and the musicians, in the process developing what had started as a sketchy idea into an attractive and convincing thesis.

A concert by the Nash Ensemble for invited guests to mark his sixtieth birthday in April 2008 was mooted but Edmund was involved in a serious fraud trial in Hong Kong and, as the time approached, it became clear that it would be very difficult for him to get away.  Judging it impolite not to put in an appearance at his own birthday party, Edmund let the idea drop.

The Friends of the Nash Ensemble, along with so many others, will greatly miss Edmund’s companionship, his knowledge, intellect and humour.  We record our deepest sympathy for his wife Christina and their children.  At Christina’s request, Lucy Wakeford of the Nash Ensemble played Hymn St Denio from Benjamin Britten’s Suite for Harp at Edmund’s funeral service.