Of Judges, Jurists and Juristic Style: The Legacy of Sir Patrick Elias in British Labour Law

This article considers the legacy of Sir Patrick Elias as jurist and judge. The bridge between these two phases of Sir Patrick's professional life is a modest juristic style. His scholarship was doctrinally focused and avoided grand theories of labour law, and it was cautious about proportionality and human rights. His judging was always sensitive to the proper constitutional limits of the judicial role in a constitutional democracy. The motifs of this modest juristic style included the importance of enforcing contractual bargains; a sensitive appreciation of the limitations of judging in disputes between parties; the challenges of achieving ambitious structural changes through individual cases; and the potential of 'ordinary' purposive statutory interpretation to achieve the worker-protective goals of employment law. The article concludes by highlighting the enduring importance of Sir Patrick's modest juridical style.