Jolyon Maugham

Maugham is the son of David Benedictus, although they did not meet until Maugham was 17. He was brought up in New Zealand by his English mother, Lynne Joyce Maugham, and his adoptive father, Alan Barker.[1][6][7] At 16 he had to leave his parents' house after a dispute, and did cleaning work. He went to England and stayed with his mother's father after finishing school.[8]

Maugham went to Wellington High School, New Zealand.[1] He graduated with a first-class LLB in European Legal Studies from Durham University (Hatfield College) in 1995.[9] He also spent some time in Belgium at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, studying under Walter Van Gerven,[10] and later completed an MA at Birkbeck, University of London.[2] As a student he was sent by a temping agency to carry out secretarial work at a law firm, but was sent back for being a man. Maugham sued, claiming to be a victim of sex discrimination, and was awarded compensation.[11]

Maugham completed his pupillage in the chambers of Lord Irvine.[11] He became a Queen's Counsel in 2015.[2] Maugham was a tenant a Devereux Chambers, specialising in taxation law. He left Devereux Chambers at the end of 2020.[12] In 2021, Maugham claimed he was blacklisted by the law firm Allen & Overy.[13]

Maugham's cases include defending the rights of British expatriates in Europe,[14][15] a case to clarify whether the Brexit process can be reversed by Parliament,[16] and a legal challenge to referendum spending by Vote Leave.[17][18]

Maugham had advised the Labour Party on tax policy under Ed Miliband.[19] He was formerly on the advisory council of liberal conservative think tank Bright Blue, which advises the Conservative Party.[20] The Times reported that Maugham "flirted with Labour in the run-up to the 2015 election, harbouring a fleeting fantasy of becoming attorney-general".[21]

In April 2017, Maugham reportedly contemplated forming a new centrist political party, "Spring",[22] and standing for election against Prime Minister Theresa May in her constituency of Maidenhead,[23] but decided against it.[24][25][26]

Maugham is on the Board of the Good Law Project, a not-for-profit campaign organisation that claims to use the law to protect the interests of the public.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, Maugham and the Good Law Project challenged the appointments of key figures in the British government's pandemic response, such as Kate Bingham and Baroness Harding. GLP alleged their appointments were the result of a "culture of cronyism and the highly secretive use of billions of pounds of public funds".[8] In June 2021, the challenge against the appointment of Bingham was dropped.[27]

In November 2021, a company which supplied face shields during the COVID-19 pandemic announced it was suing GLP for defamation after it alleged the firm had obtained its contract through political connections and had supplied substandard equipment, without evidence.[28] The same month, Maugham had to apologize on behalf of GLP to the Health Secretary and the High Court after breaching civil procedure rules in a case concerning the supply of PPE equipment.[29]

Maugham has been an outspoken supporter of transgender rights and as of November 2020 is representing a transgender boy in a lawsuit against the NHS over treatment delays.[30] As of June 2021, Maugham is involved in an appeal against a decision to award charitable status to LGB Alliance on the basis that it did not "meet the threshold tests to be registered as a charity";[31] Maugham has spoken publicly about the charity, calling it "a transphobic hate group."[32]

In late 2019 Maugham accused the talkRADIO presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer of revealing his home address at a time when he was receiving death threats.[33] He also criticised the television programme Question Time for allowing Hartley-Brewer to appear as a panellist.[33] Hartley-Brewer defended herself by saying Maugham's address was already easily available online and that he had previously revealed it himself in published interviews.[33]

On the morning of 26 December 2019, Maugham stated in a Twitter post that he had "killed a fox with a baseball bat". Maugham claimed that the fox was entrapped by the netting surrounding a hen house in his garden. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals investigated the matter,[35][36][37][38][39] but decided not to prosecute because a post-mortem showed the fox had been killed swiftly, meaning that "the evidential threshold needed to take a prosecution under the CPS code was not met".[40]