Law and Disorder

by Tim Kevan

  Law and Disorder

  Confessions of a Pupil Barrister

  TIM KEVAN

  To Michelle and my parents and in loving memory of Lorna Wilson

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Lawyers, I suppose,

  were children once.

  Charles Lamb

  We are the hollow men

  We are the stuffed men

  Leaning together

  Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

  Our dried voices, when

  We whisper together

  Are quiet and meaningless

  As wind in dry grass

  Or rats’ feet over broken glass

  In our dry cellar . . .

  T.S. Eliot

  Contents

  Prologue

  CHAPTER 1 October: First Days

  CHAPTER 2 November: Faustian Pact

  CHAPTER 3 December: Sex Discrimination

  CHAPTER 4 January: YouTube

  CHAPTER 5 February: Upstairs, Downstairs

  CHAPTER 6 March: The Bait

  CHAPTER 7 April: First Days in Court

  CHAPTER 8 May: FakeClaim

  CHAPTER 9 June: HoneyTrapped

  CHAPTER 10 July: Facebooked

  CHAPTER 11 August: Showdowns

  CHAPTER 12 September: Tenancy Decision

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright page

  Cast list

  BabyBarista: A young Flashman meets Rumpole meets

  Francis Urquhart for the twenty-first century.

  OldRuin: How a barrister should be. Dumbledore

  meets Clarence, the angel in It’s a Wonderful

  Life. BabyB’s redemption.

  TheBoss: BabyB’s first pupilmaster. Unscrupulous,

  spineless coward.

  TopFirst: Fellow pupil and BabyB’s main competition

  for tenancy.

  BusyBody: Fellow pupil and a whirlwind of interference

  with a good heart.

  Worrier: Fellow pupil carrying the details of the world

  on her shoulders.

  UpTights: BabyB’s pupilmistress for his second six

  months who was almost called BoTucks

  for the work she’s had done. Insists on

  boundaries and personal space. Has ‘issues’.

  OldSmoothie: Think Peter Bowles in To The Manor Born

  and the Milk Tray Man, but not quite. Once

  successful barrister now put out to graze as a

  committee man.

  TheBusker: Barrister of ten years’ call with the integrity

  and decency of OldRuin. Very laid back in his approach to both court and life. Admired

  by BabyB.

  Claire: BabyB’s best friend and a pupil in another

  chambers. Think Scully from X-Files.

  ThirdSix: Final pupil thrown into the mix halfway

  through BabyB’s pupillage. He is on his third

  six-month pupillage.

  TheVamp: Tenant in chambers and a walking innuendo.

  HeadofChambers: Well meaning, pompous and out of touch.

  HeadClerk: The real power in chambers. All seeing, all

  knowing.

  FanciesHimself: Junior clerk who has a 8 ing with BusyBody.

  JudgeJewellery: Judge with penchant for stealing high-street

  trinkets.

  ClichéClanger: Solicitor with a colourful use of the English

  language.

  SlipperySlope: Solicitor skilled in the creative art of billing.

  Prologue

  Sunday 1 October 2006

  Day 0 (week 0): Jewel thief

  It’s the day before I start work and I’ve been clearing out my room at home. One thing upon which I stumbled was a note I made some ten years ago at school. It’s a list entitled ‘Careers’:

  England football captain. I wish. Vet. Sticking hand in dark places. Binman. Too smelly. Solicitor. Yawn. Barrister. Silly clothes. Doctor. Too many ill people. Banker. Pushing money around.

  Then at the end I’d scribbled, ‘Jewel thief?’

  CHAPTER 1

  October: First Days

  The art of war is . . . a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.

  Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  Monday 2 October 2006

  Day 1 (week 1): TheBoss

  ‘Where’s the strong ground coffee?’ I asked, starting to panic slightly. I spent the summer working for Starbucks in preparation for today but it didn’t seem to be standing me in any stead so far.

  ‘Where you’d expect it to be. Over there.’

  ‘And the filters?’

  ‘Ah. We may have run out of those. You’ll need to go to the kitchen on the second floor west for those.’

  I took out the little map I’d been given and worked out where this was before making the dash across corridors and staircases. I arrived back, sweating, only to find that the kettle was now empty and needed re-boiling. Time was ticking and my stress levels were rising. Eventually it was all done and I made my way through to serve the coffee, albeit somewhat belatedly.

  ‘Just put it down over there, young man.’

  I did so and only just stopped myself from making a bow before withdrawing to my desk.

  So there it is. My first day as a pupil barrister in chambers and this is truly the diary of a nobody. I’ve been warned about it by those who’ve gone before. ‘Glorified coffee-maker’ and ‘underpaid photocopier’ were the most common descriptions. Such is the ordeal through which the Bar Council continues to force its brightest and best. Interviews and offers might be sufficient for Goldman Sachs or McKinsey. Not so the Bar. Twelve months of four pupils fighting it out before chambers vote for which one of the four they want to take on as a tenant.A sort of upper-class reality show in microcosm where every one of your foibles will be analysed and where a blackball system exists so that if you annoy one person, you’re out. As with Big Brother, you’re playing to the lowest common denominator. Attempting to be as inoffensive as possible in the sound knowledge that it won’t be the votes in favour that get you in but the lack of votes against. Sure, they’ll go through the motions of checking my work and ticking the Bar Council’s equal opportunities forms. But the crunch comes in the unsaid so-called ‘Tennis Club Test’ – would they have me in their club . . . or not. All of which for a comprehensive-school kid from north London might seem a little daunting were it not for the fact that I’d already had ivory tower practice for three years whilst studying law at Oxford. Still, as I sit here at my laptop in the corner of the office reflecting on my first day, I realise that the Bar takes that whole elitism to a new level. Not that I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for, nor can I pretend that wasn’t part of the attraction of it in the first place. That, and getting paid huge sums of money to prance around in silly clothes all day.

  Anyway, after a sleepless night I’d rocked up at chambers at 8.30 a.m. on the dot. There were no signs telling new pupils where to go. Just a board with the names of the members of chambers below an ancient archway. The entrance hall was all old Punch cartoons and tatty leather armchairs and from there it went through to the clerks’ room which in contrast looked more like a city traders’ office with a collection of seven or eight computer screens and a bunch of people talking at top speed on the phone. I made my big entrance, the start of my new life, and was completely ignored by everyone in there. A couple looked up before resuming their conversations. The others didn’t even acknowledge my presence at all. I stood there for a few minut
es not wanting to interrupt before deciding to leave and try my entrance afresh. Ten minutes later I’d been around the block and was met by an immaculately dressed man in his fifties, with a paunch and a well-groomed, Richard Branson-type beard the same size as the bald patch on top of his head, as if one was somehow cancelling out the other. He looked at me in a slightly intimidating way and boomed, ‘Where did you go, young man? Taking breaks before you’ve even started?’

  ‘Er, no, Sir. Wasn’t sure if I’d got the right place. Went to check.’

  ‘Never call me Sir, Sir. My name is John. Head Clerk. You must be young Mr BabyBarista, Sir?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right – er – John.’

  ‘Welcome aboard, Sir. We run a tight ship here in the clerks’ room. Never forget to tell us where you are when you’re not with your pupilmaster. We’ll always have something else for you to be doing. Now, where is your pupilmaster?’

  One of the junior clerks eventually got around to leading me up the bare stone stairs of chambers to a decent-sized room overlooking a large car park. I’d already checked out my pupilmaster online. I’ll call him TheBoss. Educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge, he had a pretty traditional upper-middle-class barrister background. Upper second in law and then called to the Bar in the Middle Temple in 1986. He’s therefore been a barrister for some eighteen years and I found with a bit more of a Google search that he is married with two kids. Official interests: chess and tennis.

  Even on first meeting you could tell that he was a vain man and he was at that stage of life where he was just starting to lose his looks but hadn’t quite come to terms with it yet. This was fairly obvious from the fact that he had clearly outgrown both his shirt and his suit trousers to the extent that they were beyond even ‘fitted’. Up top, his dark hair was receding and where it still remained it was greying. All of which he seemed to be trying to hide with a kind of arrogant air, as if trying to tell the world that nothing could touch him, not even time itself.

  He showed me my tiny desk, the size of a small laptop, and before even mentioning his work or anything like that he said, ‘Now BabyBarista, let’s get the important things out of the way first.’

  He led me through to a poky little boxroom with a kettle, a sink and a fridge.

  ‘I take my coffee on the hour but if I’m working hard, I’d like it more often. It’s something you’ll have to learn to judge. Now, I will provide you with the coffee beans and you will take it from there. Take the grinding slowly and make it as fine as possible. Increases the surface area you know. Gets that extra bit of flavour.’

  He started to look animated. ‘Then I insist on paper filters. Only the best as well. Can’t be too careful these days. Lot of rubbish on the market. Once you’ve filtered then you’re home and dry. Mugs are here and you’ll provide the milk each morning. Semi-skimmed. Just a dash along with half a sugar. Get this right, BabyBarista, and you’ll be destined for great things. Remember, it’s all in the grind.’

  This was no joke or amusing metaphor. He was absolutely serious. This would be the heart of my job. Then, as he led me back into the room grumbling about coffee-makers he’d had in the past, he went on, ‘Oh, there’s one more important thing I like to give my pupils.’

  He rummaged in his desk and then handed me a strange little book entitled The Art of War, by Sun Tzu.

  ‘Litigation is like war, BabyBarista. Read this and learn.’

  Tuesday 3 October 2006

  Day 2 (week 1): Political correctness day

  It was political correctness day today. It started with the chat from TheBoss. He sat back in his swivel chair, put his feet on his huge old leather-topped desk – which stood in stark contrast to my tiny Ikea number – and clasped his hands together in front of him.

  ‘Something I have to go through with you today, BabyBarista. We now have rules about sexual harassment at the Bar,’ (as if it was all perfectly fine before that). ‘I’m sure you understand, being an Oxford man,’ (whatever that was meant to mean). ‘Please remember that if you are ever feeling sexually harassed, you must not hesitate to report it to me.’

  He then paused, for effect, and shifted a little awkwardly. ‘I’m also bound to tell you, for the avoidance of any doubt that, if you believe that I am the one doing the sexual harassing then you must tell HeadofChambers immediately.’

  All said deadpan and without even a hint of irony.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I said. Certainly. I’ll do that. Note to self. Must not forget.

  Well, HeadofChambers was quite different. There are two men and two women doing this pupillage and we were all herded into his very grand room. Here, for the first time, I squared up to my competition for the year. On average only one in four gets taken on and there is no avoiding the fact that we are directly in competition for that place. It was hardly high noon at the OK Corral but there was definitely a lot of sizing up going on. The two women tried to be more subtle about it and one in particular appeared almost shy, but the other guy just came across as plain arrogant, like he already owned the place and was finding this whole induction process a distraction from his otherwise important business.

  Two of the walls in the room were lined with law reports. Another had yet more old cartoons of long-dead lawyers, along with a painting of someone shooting on what was probably a Scottish grouse moor and a photograph of HeadofChambers in full hunting regalia astride his horse and raising a glass to the camera. It was quite a walk to get to the end of the room where HeadofChambers sat at his old wooden desk in front of a massive window which overlooked the courtyard below. We were told to sit at the conference table in front, as, no doubt, thousands of his clients had done over the years. He was how you might have imagined a barrister to look a hundred years ago. It was as if he had modelled himself on that image to such an extent that he had himself eventually become it, from his immaculate pin-striped suit to his slicked-back hair, which looked as if it had been flattened by forty years of wearing a bowler hat. He looked like a man for whom doubt had been cast away many years ago. As we entered his look was stern, despite the fact that he was clearly trying to take a slightly paternal tack with, ‘Ah, the Baby Bar. Do come in and take a seat.’

  After a brief introduction telling us that chambers had been founded some sixty years ago and that we were following in a fine tradition, he continued, ‘Now. I’ve got to tell you this. Bar Council regulations and all that. Sexual harassment. Terrible mess. Hope it doesn’t happen. But, if it does, I’m bound to inform you that you should report it either to your pupilmaster or to me. This is without reservation and you should be fully aware that we comply entirely with the Bar Council policy on this issue. I’m also bound to tell you that should you make any such complaint it will not be held against you in this chambers.’

  So that was that and now we knew. Except it wasn’t.

  ‘However,’ he looked up and peered at each of us over the top of his half-moon spectacles and then focused on the two women. ‘I probably shouldn’t say this, but it’s meant in the most helpful way. Consider it practical advice from an old hand at the Bar. Bear in mind that whilst you are absolutely within your rights to make any such complaint, in fact more than within your rights, you must not forget also that there are consequences to every action. This is always the case and is no different here. Whatever you do has consequences whether you notice them or not. I can’t say what they’d be in these circumstances but you have to be aware that not all chambers or barristers are as enlightened as us. Not that they’d actively discriminate against you in those circumstances. It’s just that you should know that they would know. That’s all.’

  Welcome to the modern Bar.

  Wednesday 4 October 2006

  Day 3 (week 1): TopFirst

  ‘So, how have you found your first few days?’ I asked.

  ‘Pretty easy really. Personal injury’s not exactly very taxing intellectually, if you know what I mean.’

  We were in the clerks’ room
and this was my first chat with TopFirst, the other guy pupil with the over-confident swagger. Today he was obviously on his best behaviour although he still seemed a bit of a swot. Got a first at Cambridge and even went on to do a master’s. A little quiet, although I’ve been told that quiet is not a bad tactic for pupillage. Seems strange when you’re training for such an ostensibly outgoing and independent profession that you spend the first year proving your abilities to slime up to the right people and keep out of the way of others. Yet TopFirst is quiet to the point of being aloof and has an almost aggressive air of cleverness. Physically he’s tall and quite thin, but in a more rodenty than a chinless aristocratic way. Like one of the ferrets who took over Toad Hall. All dressed up and airs and graces and yet not quite making it. Let me be more clear. He’s arrogant and pretentious. Two things which will no doubt serve him well at the Bar.

  Thursday 5 October 2006

  Day 4 (week 1): Lunch

  So far, other than making coffee, I’ve been wholly occupied in trundling along behind TheBoss and meeting and greeting other pupils. It seems that the way he likes it done is to refuse to acknowledge my presence when he’s with other barristers outside of chambers. We were at lunch yesterday in one of the halls and he greeted a number of his chums. Some had pupils and the only confirmation that I was not invisible was that there were perfunctory nods from them. A knowing look that says we’re all in the same boat and it’s not much fun. Raised eyebrows and at least the tiniest bit of human interaction.

  Though I did at least learn an important lesson at lunch. Chat was about nothing in particular and after much thought I eventually came up with something designed to impress, only to find that TheBoss had decided to speak at the same time. Quick as a flash he looked at me and said pointedly, ‘Sorry, after you,’ with raised eyebrows. It wasn’t the first time I’d noticed that his best put-downs are in the insincere courtesies he offers around.

  ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’

  ‘No, I insist,’ he replied. ‘Go ahead.’