Clive Coleman

Clive Coleman is the BBC’s Legal Correspondent, a role he arrived at via a career as a barrister, Principal Lecturer in Law, and then one of the country’s leading comedy writers. He is a also a multi-talented sitcom writer,  after-dinner speaker  and  conference facilitator . His television credits include: ‘Dead Ringers’, ‘Spitting Image’, ‘Smith and Jones’, and ’Chambers’ his hit BBC1 sit-com about barristers, starring John Bird, James Fleet and Sarah Lancashire. He’s also written a huge amount of comedy for Radio with credits including, ‘Weekending’, ‘The News Huddlines’ and his sit-com ‘Spending My Inheritance’, starring Kris Marshall. Clive’s also wrote television drama on the ITV series ‘The Bill’ (for whom he has also acted as a legal consultant on court based storylines).

Clive started out as a barrister in 1986 at the chambers of Robin Stewart QC at 2 Harcourt Buildings, Temple. Working in both crime and civil law, for prosecution and defence, his career started in spectacular fashion when he managed to get his first client off with a mere six-month prison sentence. That was for a parking offence, so from his first case Clive was spotting the funny side of the law and took to writing about it!

In 1992, Clive won the prestigious BBC Radio Light Entertainment Contract Writers Award. In 1998, he won the BBC’s inaugural ‘Frank Muir Award’, for outstanding comedy writing. He has also written regularly on The Times comment pages and for The Guardian and The Independent.

Clive works across television news and radio, appearing regularly on the Today programme, Five Live, Breakfast, The News Channel and BBC news bulletins. From 2004 –2010 he presented the BBC’s flagship legal analysis programme ‘Law In Action’ on Radio 4, a role for which, in 2009, he won the Bar Council’s Legal Broadcasting Award.  Clive has presented many other television and radio programmes for the BBC including Panorama (BBC1), Profile (R4), Pick of the Week (R4), The Cases That Changed Our World (R4).

His Newsnight interview with the 'right to die' campaigner Paul Lamb was shortlisted for the Nick Clarke Award in 2014, and his chat with the reclusive 'Cassetteboy', perhaps the country's best-known parody, 'mash up' artist, caused a stir on Twitter and an article in The Guardian described it as a 'perfect media moment'. It was also picked up as a news highlight on 'Have I Got News For You'.

Clive has continued to write to great acclaim, scripting plays, writing reports and satirising current affairs – everything from legal proposals to Brexit.

Clive has delivered keynote and after dinner speeches to an array of UK based and multi-national companies, trade and professional bodies. As a conference host and link presenter, he has hosted numerous conferences and awards ceremonies where his combination of analytical, broadcasting and writing skills have enabled him to write and deliver talks, links and chair debates which ensure that the focus is always sharp, intelligent and witty.