My legal hero: Lord Leslie Scarman | Ruth Deech | Law | guardian.co.uk

Lord Scarman meets a resident in Railton Road, Brixton. Photograph: Garry Weaser

My legal hero is someone whom I not only admire for their legal career, but also for the extensive influence they have had over my own. Personally I owe him nearly everything. Looking back on my association with him, I can hardly believe that the day would come when I would be writing about him.

Lord Leslie Scarman became a barrister in 1936 and a QC in 1957. He was on the high court bench from 1961 and moved on to the court of appeal in 1973, before being elevated to the House of Lords in 1977. A fellow south Londoner, educated at Oxford, he gave me my first job at the Law Commission, of which he was chairman from 1965 to 1973.

I remember that the atmosphere in Holborn, where the offices of the Law Commission were established, was electric. Anything and everything was going to be possible.

Divorce law would be cleansed of fault; contract and criminal law were to be codified' and the commission's law reform proposals were to be ushered through parliament without too much alteration. Not all of this came to pass, but much of it did due to the efforts of Scarman alongside the acclaimed lord chancellor, Gerald Gardiner. The Law Commission is his legacy.

Scarman personally assigned me to the family law team, where he used to test out concepts of marital fault on me as a female about to marry, as the rest of the team sat around the table. He took gentle delight in teasing me about my wedded life to come.

Despite this being my first interaction with family law, I went on to lecture at Oxford in 1970 and was immediately called upon to teach the subject. Most of my academic career centred on this aspect of the law and my attitudes were entirely shaped by my experience with him.

Always a supportive presence, Scarman nurtured all of the young people who came his way. Among his staff at the Law Commission was Elizabeth Evatt, later the first chief judge of the family court of Australia, Horton Rogers, later a professor at Nottingham University, and Edward Caldwell, who was to become first parliamentary counsel and who was encouraged towards draftsmanship during his time at the Law Commission. His commitment to education would later be reflected in his chancellorship of Warwick University and membership of the court of London University. He would also chair the Council of Legal Education and preside over the senate of the Inns of Court and the bar.

Scarman did not only have a dramatic affect on me and my peers; he is also remembered by many for his meticulous and insightful observations of the disturbances in Northern Ireland in 1972, Red Lion Square in 1975 and the Grunwick trade union dispute in 1977.

However, his name will always be inextricably linked to the public inquiry he led into the Brixton riots in 1981. He walked the streets of Brixton, listening to local views in the course of compiling his report, in which he set out the facts of racial disadvantage and poverty that lay behind the riots. He was praised by legal professionals and the general public alike for his fair-mindedness and unstinting resolve.

However, the Brixton inquiry can often overshadow his substantial commitment to the introduction of human rights legislation in this country. His involvement with Charter 88 and the origins of human rights have left their mark today and his Hamlyn Lectures (English Law – the New Dimension 1974) were the foundation of much that we now take for granted in the legal system. He called for the incorporation of the European declaration of human rights into English law and lived to see this aim realised.

Despite his high profile and excellent credentials, he treated everyone equally and was thoughtful and polite to all he came across.

Watching from the sidelines in the Law Commission, I could see that he behaved with the same courtesy and attention to the visiting dignitaries as he did to the least of the staff in the office. Ever since, I have regarded this sort of non-discriminatory kindness and solicitude as the true hallmark of a gentleman.

Unlike Lord Denning, he did not use his judicial position to bend the law in judgments, but utilised the parliamentary process and statutory law to achieve those ends.

As the chair of the legal regulator, the Bar Standards Board, I am all too aware of the current challenges facing the legal profession. I am only sorry that Scarman is no longer with us, as I am sure he would have been at the forefront of the fight to preserve the independence of the bar in the face of increasing government control, state intervention and cuts in legal aid.

Baroness Ruth Deech is Gresham professor of law and chairman of the Bar Standards Board

via guardian.co.uk