On 21 March 2017 the Yorkshire Law Society will have been in existence for 231 years. The society held its inaugural meeting on 21 March 1786, making it one of the oldest local law societies in existence - the oldest being Bristol, founded in 1770 - and predating the national Law Society by nearly 40 years.

The law and its practice have seen momentous changes since that time, and those changes can be reviewed in a new book, The Yorkshire Law Society 1786-2015 - A Personal Tribute by Tony Lawton, a member of the society who - coincidentally - will mark 50 years of membership on the same date, 21 March 2017.

The book is not an orthodox academic history, but rather a personal perspective on an important period of legal development which formed the world in which we live today, and looks at the full legal, political and social context of those changes. In the words of the author:

If the future of the legal world is very difficult to predict, some understanding of how we got from where we were to where we are will at least give us some notion of where we might be heading, or even encourage us to change direction. It is for this reason that although the title might suggest a geographically specific perspective, it does provide a more general one

Further information, including a selection of extracts and ordering details, can be found on the Yorkshire Law Society's website.