Almost six months before she died, Shirley Robin Letwin mentioned in a letter to her friend, Milton Friedman, that she had “not been well,” but that she seemed “to be mending” and was finally “able to finish the long overdue ‘law book’.” This book, which she intended to be her career contribution to the academic debates about theories of law – her central intellectual passion – had been her principal project for at least a decade, but was repeatedly delayed as she took on other more urgent projects, such as her book on Margaret Thatcher (The Anatomy of Thatcherism, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1993).

For many years, her husband William Letwin, and her son Oliver Letwin, nurtured the hope of being able to complete the manuscript. Shirley had secured a tentative offer of publication from an American university press, but it would require some important revisions. Bill's declining health, and Oliver's ascending political career conspired to stall their project. Finally, in 2001, I took advantage of a casual encounter with Kenneth Minogue, a close Letwin family friend and London School of Economics colleague to inquire about the status of the manuscript. We shared the view that this would be an important contribution to legal philosophy, and that outside help would probably be needed to bring it to publication. By this time Oliver was completely consumed by his political career as Shadow Home Secretary, and was also managing most of his father's affairs.