Lawyer Manley

The first in a series devoted to the legal career of the Rt Excellent Norman Manley, QC, MM. This phase of his life spanned some thirty-three years and terminated when Manley became chief minister of Jamaica in 1955. During that time he won a legendary position for himself at the Jamaican Bar appearing in numerous civil and criminal cases, both at first instance, and in the appellate court.

Written in narrative style from a court room perspective, First Time Up deals primarily with twenty-four of Manley’s early cases from 1922 to 1925. Based on court reports, Manley’s legal papers, diaries and letters, the material is revealing historically, legally and sociologically.

Manley’s cross-examinations were hardly ever without excitement and those of expert witnesses an intellectual treat. Witnesses offer a mass of detail about life in Jamaica in the 1920s and the verdicts dispel the assumption that Manley never lost a murder trial. The reader meets a host of Jamaican personalities, all in their early, formative years, as jurors, clients or hostile witnesses pitting their wits against Manley in the box.