Courtrooms carry an air of authority, with formal procedures and the promise that justice will prevail. In A Lawyer’s Beliefs: True Stories of Absurdities from the Courtroom, Valery Stoyanov explores the human behaviour inside that setting, drawing on decades of legal experience to reveal its absurdities.
His memoir and satire invites readers into a world where power, uncertainty and comic timing share the same stage. It’s a candid perspective shaped by years spent observing how people behave when justice is at stake.
Twelve Beliefs and a Wealth of Courtroom Absurdities
Built around twelve irreverent “beliefs,” the book takes readers through the legal landscape of post-communist Bulgaria. Its material includes bribes carried in briefcases, courtroom farce and the everyday performance of authority. These experiences give Valery plenty to examine, and his sharp humour brings an accessible voice to subjects that can feel intimidating.
The structure suits the conversational nature of the writing. Each belief creates room for stories and reflections gathered over a long career, allowing readers to encounter the legal world through individual moments, personalities and situations.
Valery presents the reader as an invisible listener to a private conversation. That invitation establishes an informal atmosphere from the outset. The language may include dialect and irregular expressions, reflecting the way people speak when they’re sharing experiences privately.
There’s an appealing immediacy to this approach. Readers are encouraged to listen closely, follow the conversation and consider what each story reveals about the people involved. The courtroom becomes a place filled with recognisable human impulses, including ambition, self-interest, fear and the desire to control an outcome.
When Legal Experience Meets a Satirical Eye
Valery’s background gives the book its insider perspective. Having worked as a prosecutor, criminal court judge and lawyer, he has encountered the legal process from several positions. Those experiences support his reflections on the distance between written rules and everyday reality.
Humour plays a central role in how he shares that perspective. The supplied description captures a world where justice often arrives with a punchline, and the book’s premise makes room for laughter alongside serious questions about power.
The image of Themis, the Goddess of Justice, offers a particularly striking starting point. Her scales, sword and blindfold become a way of considering the uncertainty surrounding legal decisions. In Valery’s telling, justice has always attracted attention while carrying chances and risks for those who enter its orbit.
He also suggests that the beliefs extend across Europe and much of the world. Although Bulgaria provides the setting, readers elsewhere may recognise the broader concerns about authority, fairness and human behaviour.
The book’s origins add another personable detail. Valery describes beginning to scribble as work slowed down, then sending his writing to a friend as a joke. Additional beliefs followed, including observations he had first heard more than thirty years earlier.
He explains that some names have been changed and some portrayals have been summarised or generalised. This gives readers useful context for the storytelling. The invitation is to enter a personal account shaped by memory, observation and an experienced lawyer’s sense of the absurd.
That conversational framing also helps explain the book’s title. A belief can hold an observation, a remembered remark or a conclusion formed over years. Here, the twelve beliefs provide a loose framework for examining what people expect from justice and what they encounter along the way.
About the Author
Valery is a Bulgarian lawyer with over thirty years of legal practice. His professional background includes earlier service as a prosecutor and criminal court judge, along with experience representing clients before the European Court of Human Rights.
In A Lawyer’s Beliefs: True Stories of Absurdities from the Courtroom, he draws on that career to share stories, humour and candid reflections on justice, power and human nature. His writing welcomes readers behind courtroom doors, where professional rituals meet the unpredictable behaviour of the people taking part.
The book is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions. The book is published by Dolphin Marketing Press.
A Conversation That Stays With the Reader
For readers drawn to legal memoirs and dark humour, A Lawyer’s Beliefs offers an intriguing invitation into the courtroom’s everyday theatre. Valery’s conversational voice makes space for amusement and reflection in equal measure. Through twelve beliefs, he encourages readers to consider how justice looks when viewed by someone who has spent decades watching it unfold.
We had the privilege of interviewing the author. Here are excerpts from the interview:
Thank you so much for joining us today! Please introduce yourself and tell us what you do.
My name is Valeri Stoyanov, and I am a Bulgarian lawyer and the author of one book so far. My professional career has given me the opportunity to see the justice system from three different perspectives: I have been a prosecutor, a judge, and today I practise as a lawyer. The only role I have yet to play is that of a criminal defendant, although I was once sued by a former client. I won, of course. Over the years, I have collected many true stories, observations, paradoxes and human experiences from the courtroom. Some of them found their way into my book, A Lawyer’s Beliefs.
Tell us about your background and journey.
Every practising lawyer is, at least to some extent, a writer. Behind the dry language of the law, there is always a human story. Sometimes, a single remark in the courtroom says more about justice than an entire textbook. I began writing down these incidents and observations, and gradually A Lawyer’s Beliefs took shape. The book is about both the law and the people who find themselves in its world: judges, prosecutors, lawyers, the accused and clients. It turned out that the courtroom was not only a place where justice is administered, but also a stage on which human nature reveals itself with particular clarity.
What strategies helped you achieve success along the way?
Everyone has their own idea of success and their own path towards it. I am not looking for a grand victory, just my own. There are no universal recipes for anything. I believe decisions should be made with the heart, rather than the head. If something does not work out, I do not get upset, because I know that we all have a plan, but God also has a plan for each of us, and His is the best. In my profession, curiosity, independence and the ability to look at a situation from more than one perspective have helped me most. Perhaps that is why my book does not tell readers what to think. I try to show them the situation, sometimes seriously, sometimes with irony, and let them draw their own conclusions. As an author, I follow the same rule: write simply, honestly and clearly. The law may be national. The human soul is international.
What message would you like to share with our readers?
“The justice system is the sick man of every society. It behaves strangely, and everyone hovers around it, trying to help.” You do not have to be a lawyer to take an interest in justice. Sooner or later, almost everyone encounters the law, sometimes willingly, sometimes not. Everyone has been, is, or will be a lawyer’s client. Behind every law, court ruling and case, there are people. This book is about them. I hope the English edition of A Lawyer’s Beliefs will show readers around the world that, whether the courtroom is in Bulgaria, Britain or America, human weaknesses, fears, hopes and absurdities are remarkably similar. Every heart skips a beat at the sound of that damn word, “justice”. All over the world, in both law and medicine, two and two do not always make four. That is why there are dissatisfied people everywhere, and one of them is surely called Donald Trump. And if the reader laughs here and there, all the better. The law is far too serious a matter for us to always speak of it seriously.
Thank you so much, Valeri Stoyanov, for giving us your precious time! We wish you all the best for your journey ahead!