GEOFFREY Bindman – founder of Bindmans law firm in King’s Cross, a former Camden councillor, community law centre chairman and Private Eye libel legal ace – was remembered this week as one of the leading left-wing “old school common lawyers” of his generation.
He has died aged 92.
His legal expertise ranged from high profile international human rights cases, like the attempt to extradite General Pinochet, to representing unions in work safety claims and helping north London women divorce from troubled relationships.
Sir Geoffrey, whose wife of 65 years Lynn Winton and brother David died this year, lived in for decades on the Holly Lodge estate, before moving to High Point in Highgate Village.
His son Jonathan said: “Geoff worked in Camden for as long as I knew him. His first practice was in Kentish Town High Road before they set up Bindman and Partners, first on the corner of Argyle Street, later moving to Euston Road, opposite King’s Cross station and over the “Golden Egg” slot machine arcade, before eventually getting smarter offices back in Gray’s Inn Road.
“He was a Camden councillor in the early 1970s; I remember in about 1970 walking all over Camden with him putting election leaflets through doors.
“Kentish Town library was important to us as a family. We went every Saturday and he would get records out while we would get children’s books.
“We also went to Prince of Wales pool though he watched while we swam. Geoff never swam, though he cheered me on in the Christmas Heath ponds races from 1991 to 2022.
“He also ran on the Heath regularly from the late 70s, running with Highgate Harriers; he did the London Marathon with them in about 1981.
“Until he was in his 60s he would run from Hillway across the heath to Hampstead and come back with fresh bagels.”
With his wife Lynn, Geoffrey became a regular at The Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution, Upstairs at the Gatehouse and Brooksby’s newsagents and the Owl Bookshop in Kentish Town.
His nephew Jake Bindman said: “There are so many people who have got stories of being inspired by him.
“He went out of his way to mentor people, bring them up and encouraged people. He was very clear that you should do the areas of law where you are trying to help people, and not go after the money.
“But he wasn’t naive about the business side of it. He was also dedicated to the idea that lawyers represented clients but didn’t have to agree with them.”
Jake, himself a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, recalled his uncle buying him his first bike at Chamberlaine’s in Kentish Town Road and long political conversations they had together, adding: “He had started out with injury claims for unions.
“And I have spoken to mothers excitedly saying ‘your uncle handled my divorce’. Every left-leaning woman in north London who wanted to get out of unhappy marriage would come to him.
“He was an old school common lawyer in that way.”
The brothers were the last survivors of the Jewish family from the north-east, brought up in Gateshead, and did National Service in the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers.
He got his first big break in 1969, signed up by Richard Ingrams as the libel lawyer at Private Eye magazine.
Geoffrey, who studied law at Oxford, was elected a Labour councillor for Camden Council in 1971, polling 1695 votes in the former St John’s ward.
While a councillor he helped set up Camden Community Law Centre, one of the first of its kind in the country, and sat on its board of trustees.
Sean Canning, director North West London Law Centres, praised him as a “committed stalwart of social justice in Camden” who shone a light on the “appalling housing conditions and other hardships endured by many residents in the private rented sector”.
He co-founded Bindmans in Argyle Street, King’s Cross, in 1974 as a firm aiming to “protect the rights and reputations of local Londoners” as well as acting for progressive organisations and businesses.
“A statement from the company described him as “a magnificent lawyer and a profoundly honourable man”.
Geoffrey had a formidable library of antiquarian books, a particular fan of the Romantic poets.
He loved opera and would go on foreign trips to hear classical music.
He was the legal advisor to the Race Relations Board who pushed for the end of Apartheid in South Africa, was a UN observer of the first democratic elections there, and an advisor to Amnesty International for many years.
He was a staunch supporter of the Palestinian Human Rights campaign, a visiting professor at UCL and won countless awards, including being made an honorary King’s Counsel (KC), and was knighted in 2007.
In September 2012, he told BBC Radio 4 he agreed with Desmond Tutu that British prime minister Tony Blair should be prosecuted on the grounds that starting the Iraq War was a “crime of aggression” in breach of the United Nations Charter.
Most recently, he had devoted his efforts to supporting Jeremy Corbyn and representing Jewish people who had been kicked out of the Labour party for anti-Semitism.
Sir Geoffrey’s funeral was at Golders Green Crematorium on Tuesday.
He leaves behind his sons Jonathan, Dan, daughter Miriam and six grandchildren.
