Lawyers in the Coroner’s Court
Working as an inquest lawyer necessarily means working for, or alongside, vulnerable bereaved families, in an unusual corner of the legal system, which people seldom encounter, except under the worst circumstances.
Unlike most other courts in England & Wales, the Coroner’s Court is inquisitorial in nature, not adversarial. It is the Coroner’s investigation and all other participants must help the Coroner with their inquiry. The investigation is limited to how someone came by their death. It does not attribute blame or determine criminal or civil liability. It is a fact-finding process.
This plain description, however, fails to capture an inquest’s complex dynamics. It is one in which other lawyers play a key role. The Coroner leads the investigation. But they often have assistance from the legal representatives of other participants in the process, who sit between the Coroner and those other participants, and must discharge duties to both.
Those participants, in the language of inquest law, are known as “interested persons”. They may be bereaved families, police forces, healthcare trusts, prison operators, or anyone else with a sufficient legal interest in the inquest.
The interests of the interested persons do not necessarily align and at times may be diametrically opposed. The family typically seeks answers and accountability. Non-family interested persons may focus more on legal or reputational risks to their organisations. This adversity, in a non-adversarial forum, produces inevitable tensions – which act on and through the lawyers.
Even though no-one in an inquest is on trial, an observer could well think that everyone from the deceased, to their family, and all the witnesses, are put under the microscope. An inquest lawyer must engage in client care, witness handling, and all the other courtroom skills – to help establish the facts of what happened.
And it’s not just about the facts. There is law too. Some of this is straightforward – for example rules of evidence are less strict than in civil or criminal proceedings. Other law is far from simple. The rules on causation, evidential sufficiency, and Article 2 ECHR are complex to the point of being arcane. Yet all must be translated for families and other interested persons so they can effectively participate in the process.
At the centre of the process is an absence – a person whose death is under investigation and who, by obvious necessity, cannot participate. In 2006, the House of Commons Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs described inquests as a “last, posthumous service from the State”.
Some of the most lengthy and complex inquests are into the deaths of people who have spent years of their lives in contact with state authorities. Often, though, there is a sense that it’s only in death that they are paid any real attention. The last service might, for their families, feel like the first one that truly takes them seriously.
The challenge for inquest lawyers, then, is to play their part with a particular empathy. In this forensic space, there must be room for the grief of families, the apprehension of witnesses, and the bewilderment of onlookers. The duty to investigate falls on the Coroner – but they do not discharge it alone.