A Tribute to Harvey McGregor CBE, QC, DCL

08 Oct 2015

I had the pleasure and privilege of sharing chambers with Harvey for 35 years and a room in those chambers for most of the last decade. We sat at opposite ends of a long table and shared many long days, both generally being at our places by 7.00 am and my first duty was always the provision of coffee to start the day. Harvey always seemed surprised when it arrived, presumably becuase I had found the kitchen.

 

As Tam Dayell said in The Independent it is impossible to describe the delight of conversation with Harvey which was a particular pleasure but over the last few weeks I have been reflecting on a man who was a fixture of my adult life and who seemed remarkably unchanged over that period, never young, but certainly never old and whilst never resistant to change, equally never shy about criticising constructively what he perceived as change for the sake of change.

 

The essential feature of Harvey was his wonderful joie de vivre. I never saw him angry and, goodness knows, over the 15 years he was head of our chambers, members gave him any number of reasons why he might have lost his temper. But it goes further than that: he embraced life as a wonderful collection of opportunities for his own, and others’, enjoyment, whether it was a visit to the Opera, a concert in which he was performing, the opportunity to sponsor a young musician or the late night opening of the Edinburgh botanic gardens, the analysis of an abstruse decision of the Supreme Court or a discussion with a young member of chambers concerning a point which had arisen in a case. All afforded an opportunity to revel in life and the abilities with which Harvey was blessed. He could even extract pleasure from the solving of a problem with his computer, although now I come to think of it, the words “Michael, this machine has made my document disappear” were occasionally the closest I ever saw him come to losing his temper (and that was directed to an inanimate object, albeit one which he sometimes considered was disposed to show him personal animus).

 

It is impossible to understate Harvey’s contribution to the law, and the respect in which he was held, not only by the legal profession in Britain, both north and south of the Tweed, but in the common law world as a whole. In the period leading up to his death he had been advising Indian lawyers in respect of a case before the Indian Supreme Court, an eminent Hong Kong lawyer in respect of her own litigation which came to a very satisfactory conclusion, and had been retained to advise Malaysian lawyers in a new case. In earlier years he had appeared before the very highest courts in the Country in some of the most important cases of the last 30 years and his advice was sought informally by Judges on matters they were considering, of course he had taught many of them at New College, Oxford.

 

Many will be unfamiliar with the breadth of Harvey’s contribution to the legal world. At the same time as he was embarking upon the rewriting of Mayne on Damages such that it was transformed into McGregor, he was developing a practice as a tax law specialist and in that capacity played a crucial part in the creation of the Cayman Island tax regime. He was also the author of a Contract Code devised at the joint instance of the Law Commission and the Scots Law Commission which would have codified and unified the two systems. It was not adopted by the Commissions but excited interest for a while from the European Commission. It was a demonstration of his mastery of both the academic and the practical in the law.

 

On the purely academic side of his legal life, in addition to his Oxford teaching and Wardenship of New College, Harvey had held visiting professorships at New York, Rutgers and Edinburgh. He had delivered a number of memorable lectures to specialist Bar associations over the years and to the PNBA in particular only a few weeks ago. McGregor on Damages (“The Book”) as it is always known in Chambers, continues to be widely relied upon in Courts across the Common Law world and Harvey was anxious to see the results in a number of pending decisions in order to be able to praise or criticise the judges’ efforts in his next update, an update upon which he was working on his very last day in chambers. Although not a tall man he was a towering figure, and yet one of the most approachable I have ever known.

 

Personally I will miss not only Harvey’s erudition, company and advice but also the many opportunities to witness his delight in organising one of his great party dinners in Inner Temple, a grand foreign trip, a concert in Edinburgh, dinner at the Garrick Club, an excuse for an evening of Cole Porter or Noel Coward or, on one joyous occasion, the purchase of a particularly flamboyant tie for a very senior Judge who had rashly admired one of Harvey’s racier efforts.

 

Harvey was a wonderful man – he leaves a hole in our chambers and indeed in the common law world which can never be filled – we will not see his like again.

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