In this episode of the Brick Court Chambers Centenary podcast series two legal greats discuss their reminiscences of Brick Court and their experience in the field of public inquiries.

After a career in practice at Brick Court as a commercial advocate, Nicholas Phillips, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, went on to a judicial career of unparalleled success., occupying all the major judicial offices. He is a former Master of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justice, Senior Law Lord (the last) and President of The Supreme Court (the first). Among many other public inquiries, he presided over the BSE inquiry into Mad Cow Disease from 1998 to 2000.

Sir Christopher Clarke QC was Head of Chambers from 1990 to 2004. In practice he was one of the leading commercial advocates of his day, and acted as counsel in a number of inquiries. Most famously he sat as counsel to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry for six years. As a judge he sat in the commercial court for eight years and in the Court of Appeal for four years, retiring in 2017. They discuss, on the basis of their extensive first hand experience, the nature and conduct of public inquiries, including an assessment of how the forthcoming public inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic could and should take place.

The podcast is introduced and hosted by Fionn Pilbrow QC.