Anthony Julius (born 1956) is a prominent British lawyer and academic, best known for his actions on behalf of Diana, Princess of Wales, Deborah Lipstadt and more recently Heather Mills. He is Deputy Chairman for the London law firm Mishcon de Reya.
Julius is known for his opposition to new antisemitism, the alleged expression of antisemitic prejudice couched in terms of certain kinds of discursive assaults on Israel, and gives frequent talks on the subject all over the world to raise awareness.[1] He is a founding member of both Engage and the Euston Manifesto.
Contents |
He is a son of a successful London menswear retailer, educated at the City of London School. His father died young of a brain tumour. Julius studied English literature at Jesus College, Cambridge graduating in 1977 with a first class degree and completed a Ph.D. in English literature at University College London under the novelist and academic Dan Jacobson. He joined Mishcon de Reya, a Bloomsbury law firm in 1981 becoming a partner in 1984. Currently he is Deputy Chairman to that firm.[2]
He married Judith Bernie in 1979 and had four children with her.
In 1999, following his divorce, he married Dina Rabinovitch and had one child with her. She died in 2007 of breast cancer. He married Katarina Lester in 2009.[3]
He was selected by Diana, Princess of Wales, as her legal representative in her divorce from Prince Charles.
He represented Deborah Lipstadt, successfully defending her, with Richard Rampton QC, against a libel suit brought against her by Holocaust denier David Irving.
Julius is a commercial litigator. He is a specialist in the fields of defamation, international trade disputes, and media law. He recently became a solicitor-advocate, which allows him to act as a barrister in so far as he can now appear in the High Court and the Court of Appeal.
He has written a number of books on various topics, including his PhD thesis which discussed the anti-semitism of T. S. Eliot. He has been a part-time lecturer at the Law Faculty of University College London. He is Vice-President of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, and was one of the charity's founders and its first Chairman. He is Chairman of the London Consortium and a Visiting Professor at Birkbeck, University of London.
In 2005 Julius made Arcadia Books pulp the book Empress Bianca on behalf of his client Lily Safra.[4]
Julius has promised to defend individuals and institutions affected by the most recent proposed academic boycott of Israeli universities. Writing in the Guardian, in an article co-authored with historian Simon Schama, Julius compared the academic boycott to policies adopted by Nazi Germany, noting “This is not the first boycott call directed at Jews. On April 1, 1933, a week after he came to power, Hitler ordered a boycott of Jewish shops, banks, offices and department stores.”[5] He considers the proposition unfair for singling out Israel as "uniquely evil" among nations, and said he would be delighted to act to protect those who, for example, face contractual difficulties as a result of any boycott.[6]
In 2008, Julius was critical of a signed statement by Independent Jewish Voices, a liberal group, for Israel to lift its economic blockade of the Gaza. Julius said "It is by no means unarguable that Israel is right to treat Gaza as an enemy territory. It is hard to see on what basis Israel's actions can be seen as a violation and only one or two of the signatories could grapple with issues involved."[7]