Law and Disorder
Page 2
Well, I was lost for words by that point and could only manage some incoherent ramblings. TopFirst was sitting opposite and smirked into his soup. Round one to him.
Friday 6 October 2006
Day 5 (week 1): Library life
Found my first PupilSkive today. Time in the library. Pretty obvious really, though I had to be told about it by Claire, my best friend from Bar School and now a pupil in another chambers.‘Researching a point’ is the general line to be taken. Found a whole collection of pupils wandering around the library, gossiping and looking as though they’d just been let out of jail. What would you give as the collective noun for such a gathering? A giggle? Certainly for some of them. They really are an earnest bunch as a whole. Not a little self-important too. Breathlessly talking about the merits of their respective pupilmasters and the cases that they’re on. Then there’s the revelling in the pomp of it all. Today, for example, I bumped into a friend and went to shake his hand and he corrected me. ‘Barristers don’t shake hands with each other.’
We’d all had that pointed out on the first day of pupillage but I’d noted that it was a custom often not followed, particularly by members of the Junior Bar. Next thing he’ll be addressing me as his ‘learned friend’ over coffee. I mean, please. Give it up, won’t you? It’s a job, and a pretty menial one at that. But perhaps that’s why they treat it so seriously since if they didn’t they’d realise quite how they’re being exploited. After one week, it seems clear to me that for less than the price of a junior coffee-maker in the local café (not even Starbucks), chambers gets itself a bunch of dogsbodies who will do all the inconvenient bits of paperwork, not complain at having to spend two hours poring over a photocopier and offer to make coffee or tea on an hourly basis. In the meantime, my contemporaries who went off to City solicitors are dealing with multi-million pound deals and flying off delivering papers to the Middle East whilst those in banking are swanning around on training courses in places like Geneva.
For me, I am off to Slough County Court on Monday. The glamour of the Bar. Though when I said this to my friend Claire as we sat in the library she replied,‘You should be so lucky,BabyB.I’ve spent the first week of pupillage babysitting for my pupilmistress’ two-year-old son whilst she swans off to court.’
‘So why do we do it?’ I asked.
‘Because you’re too vain to get an ordinary job,’ she replied.
‘Easier to fail at the Bar and go to the stage than the other way round, you mean?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Whilst of course all you want is to save the world.’
‘Naturally.’ She pushed a few stray strands of her brown hair out of her eyes and smiled. ‘Though quite how babysitting and coffee-making duties are going to help accomplish that I have no idea. But I’ve never asked you before. Why on earth did you choose the Bar?’
‘You want the truth?’
‘Why not.’
‘It’s pretty uncool.’
‘Go on, try me.’
‘To pay off the loans and credit card debts my mother’s incurred getting me this far. Get her back on her feet. Put an end to the constant worry.’
I paused before adding quietly, ‘I want to make her proud.’
Tuesday 10 October 2006
Day 7 (week 2): No-win, no-fee
TheBoss was actually stressed for once today and it was all over a no-win, no-fee agreement. Appropriately, it was a stress-atwork case which he’d assumed would settle which would have counted as a win and the fee would have followed. Except it didn’t settle and was now promising to end up in a five-day bunfight at Central London County Court starting tomorrow. The first big problem was that until last night, truth be told, TheBoss really hadn’t ever read the papers particularly carefully. It just seemed the sort of case which was going to settle. It was only late yesterday that he realised this was not so and started ploughing through the documents the other side had handed over months before. Needless to say, I received a late and rather abrupt phone call asking (i.e. instructing) me to get in early the next morning.
So, six o’clock this morning, bleary eyed, I crawled into chambers and started delving into the disclosure. By the time TheBoss arrived at half past eight I’d made a pretty good start and had managed to highlight a couple of good reasons why the other side might not be making the offers which TheBoss had anticipated. Factors other than work to suggest why the client might be stressed, such as a marriage break-up and massive debts. These certainly weren’t fatal to the case but they were enough to get TheBoss worried. So, rather than getting any credit for spotting these points, it seems that all day I’ve been seen as the reason why TheBoss might be about to lose ‘forty grand’s worth of fees’, as he kept muttering under his breath. As if it would have been somehow better to have made these discoveries in the middle of the trial.
With this much money at stake for TheBoss, one thing was clear. Settlement was a priority, and the quicker the better. His solicitor had even more riding on the case and so there was no resistance there. As for the client, the solicitor apparently gave him a call mentioning the difficulties that the other evidence might cause and, ‘. . . well, you do understand.’ No, the client didn’t really understand but what was he going to do, some eighteen hours before his big day in court?
So it settled and all’s well that ends well as far as TheBoss and his beloved ‘forty grand’ were concerned. Afterwards, he turned to me and asked whether I’d been reading the little book by Sun Tzu, to which I replied, ‘a little’.
‘Remember what he said about fighting, BabyB. “To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” ’
What I’d say is, ‘Never take on a lawyer on a no-win, no-fee basis.’ Invest now in legal expenses insurance. Pay upfront. But whatever you do, don’t let the lawyers start worrying about getting paid. However much they protest otherwise, it’s there in their mind. Not even at the back of their mind. It’s a big fat ugly screaming beast jumping up and down on their head telling them to settle whether you want to fight it or not.
Wednesday 11 October 2006
Day 8 (week 2): BusyBody
With the settlement under his belt, TheBoss didn’t show today and apparently will be away the rest of the week. He figures that he’s got his brief fee for the five-day trial and so at the very least after all that hard work he deserves a rest. By Jove, he’s earned it. Not that I’m complaining. When TheBoss is away . . . BabyBarista goes to the library. Turns out there’s quite a social scene already developed. A little pupil ecosystem all of its own. One of those places where the only work done is by this one librarian we call JobsWorth who sees it as his mission to seek out and find every nook or cranny which might be hiding a little collection of pupils and then to scowl and say, ‘Can you either get back to work or leave please,’ which is what he’s forced to say since one of the pupils last year apparently reported him for swearing.
Claire was at the library this morning. I was on the top floor, which is usually empty, and was playing cricket with a couple of friends. As she strolled through the door, she caught us scarpering back to our desks, like rabbits in the headlights, thinking that JobsWorth had caught us red-handed.
‘Good to see that the future of the legal profession is in safe hands,’ she said. ‘Coffee?’
Off at the nearest café, Claire looked relieved to be away from chambers.
‘I’ve decided I can’t stand my pupilmistress. Last week it was babysitting. This week she’s making me teach her precocious little four-year-old brat to read.’
‘What do the rest of chambers think about her using the place as a crèche?’
‘So long as she continues paying them inordinate amounts of rent, they don’t care what she does.’
‘Even when she’s completely taking the mickey?’
‘Regardless, and anyway, she’s played the militant-single-mum card so well
that they’d all be terrified to question her right to do anything, I reckon. But hey, what’s new with you?’
‘Well, I’ve got myself a pretty straightforward plan to win over each of the sixty or so members of chambers one by one.’
‘You and the rest of the pupil world. So how’s it work?’
‘Drawn up a spreadsheet and set myself a target of doing at least one piece of work for each of them by the time of the tenancy decision at the end of next September.’
‘Geek.’
‘You think I’m bad. You should see some of the others.’
‘It’s so sad we’ve got to do this, but I guess they’ll be making their own little plans. I have to say, I don’t like the sound of TopFirst.’
I then went on to tell her about meeting one of the girl pupils for the first time. Let me call her BusyBody. Boy oh boy is she that. This morning she collared me outside the clerks’ room and boomed so that everyone and their dog could hear, ‘Are you going to stand for election to the Young Barristers Committee of the Bar Council, BabyBarista?’
‘Er . . .’
‘Because if you’re not, do you think you would support me?’
‘Er . . .’
‘Thank you, BabyBarista. I knew I could count on my core vote in chambers.’
She’s a bundle of interfering energy who wants to boss and generally organise everyone on the planet, as well as wanting to know everyone’s business and more. It’s exhausting just watching her so I can’t imagine what it must be like to be whizzing around inside her head. Needless to say she’s been on every student committee and organising body you can imagine and was renowned even before arriving at Bar School. A human whirlwind, unable to sit still. Oh, and an overachiever on all fronts which makes it even more unbearable. She’s the other one with the Cambridge first. Same college as TopFirst in fact, just the year below. Didn’t have time for a master’s. Life is short, particularly when you’re BusyBody.
Not that she herself is short. More what you might call big-boned all round. Not massive or anything but I would say that she’s as aware as anyone from the cut of her thigh that she’s blatantly sitting on a genetic time bomb which will explode inside of her by her mid-twenties and add another five stone in the process. Perhaps it’s the price she has to pay for having inherited her Italian mother’s dark good looks, something which was evident from a photo which BusyBody has as her screensaver. Whatever the reason it leaves her very little time to find an unsuspecting husband, something she is just as transparently ambitious about, even on first meeting.
As I described her to Claire, I reflected on my first impression. On balance, I’m against.
Thursday 12 October 2006
Day 9 (week 2): Utter barristers
Today I’m feeling a little the worse for wear. Last night was my ‘call night’, the time when I was officially ‘called to the Bar’. Technically called to the ‘utter’ Bar which apparently makes me an ‘utter barrister’. Still sounds rude now. So we all queued up in Inner Temple Hall and were paraded in front of our families and various members of the great and the good to be officially made barristers and be given the right to wear the wig and gown.
The hall itself was all wood panels, coats of arms and ancient portraits, but none of that was as impressive as the hat that my mother arrived in. To say that it looked like a peacock would not be to do it justice, for in all aspects but for the fact that it did not have blood running through its veins, it did indeed appear to be a peacock. Claire, who had changed her usual black trouser suit for a jacket and skirt, thought it was all mightily amusing and kept telling me not to worry. Which would probably have been good advice were it not for the fact that her headgear had caught the attention of HeadofChambers who had sidled over to see who on earth it was sporting this grand design. Even that would have been OK if HeadofChambers had not felt the need to compensate for the air of silliness surrounding my mother by lecturing her on the significance of the ceremony. Even I, who had actually read about it beforehand, didn’t quite understand it. Remember the scene in Pulp Fiction when they tried explaining Dutch marijuana laws? It basically came across as something along those lines, but centuries older. Let me give it a go. First, ‘inner barristers’ are students, as they sit at the inner tables in Hall. All simple so far. ‘Utter’ or ‘outer’ barristers are the juniors and QCs. I’m still there, just. Then, the next day the inner barristers trot off to court as utter barristers along with all their newly found QC buddies. But no. Once at court, the QCs are suddenly the inner Bar as they can plead from ‘inside the bar’ in court. I’m afraid I’m still none the wiser – a phrase incidentally that is worth mentioning in front of any lawyer just to hear them mutter back in an almost Pavlovian reaction, ‘No, but hopefully at least better informed.’
Anyway, I’m glad we’ve got all that settled (just what TheBoss said on Tuesday). Unfortunately the lecture from HeadofChambers took rather longer and even my poor mother, standing there keen to please, was starting to look a little exhausted. Eventually she broke and turned to his wife.‘It all sounds rather complicated to me,’ she said. ‘Are you another of these utter barrister thingies?’
‘Er, no, actually. I run a hedge fund in the City.’
‘Golly. Good for you. Although I wouldn’t have thought there was much call for hedges in this urban wilderness. Do you do funds for flowers and other plants as well?’
Friday 13 October 2006
Day 10 (week 2): Worrier
With TheBoss away I’m slowly offering my services to different members of chambers. Yet I fear that BusyBody has the same idea. I’m kicking myself for even imagining that it was somehow original. It’s obvious that this is one long lobbying session and there are, I guess, a very limited number of strategies which can be deployed. I shall have to endeavour to add a little originality in future.
The only pupil I haven’t mentioned so far is someone I shall call Worrier. The most accurate way of describing her would be to say that she was almost beautiful. Not in a nearly way but as in just missed out. You see, in many ways she might be considered attractive. Blonde, slim and a certain symmetry to her face. It’s just that, well. It’s as if when they were creating Worrier they turned the dial to beautiful and then, just to be cruel, kept on turning. Turned a fatal notch too far and left her with a slightly freaky moonface dominated by her large eyes. Eyes which on a different face would undoubtedly be a plus but on this one are set so far apart that they give her a look which reminds you only of E.T. In itself an inconsequential detail, but as part of the whole something which completely skews her look. Maybe it is this which has determined the nervous tendencies which dominate her whole demeanour. I’m sure they will probably make her a good lawyer, but they can also drive you simply to wanting to shout,‘Stop! Enough is enough! No more worry. Just get on with it.’ She carries the details of the world on her shoulders.
‘Hi, BabyB. Sorry to disturb you. Can I ask you about a piece of work I’ve been set?’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s just that when we’re typing, do you put one or two spaces after a full stop? I mean I know it shouldn’t matter and everything. It’s, well, I’ve spent an hour trying to find out on Google and not managed to turn up anything and I wouldn’t want to create a bad impression right at the start.’
For Worrier, no pebble is ever knowingly left unturned. Despite this, I like her and even see her as a potential ally.
Monday 16 October 2006
Day 11 (week 3): OldRuin
TheBoss was back with a vengeance today. He’s got kids aged six and three and is already stumping up thousands in school and nursery fees. On top of that, according to a comment I picked up from HeadClerk on Friday, he has a wife with expensive tastes. ‘He won’t be able to afford not to be back in on Monday with the Christmas holiday his wife is demanding,’ he chuckled. But despite his three days off he looked a little ragged when he strolled in this morning. Some comment mid-morning about the kids kee
ping him up. Not my place to ask so I just kept my head down.
Met TheBoss’s room-mate for the first time today. I’ll call him OldRuin. Apparently he was TheBoss’s pupilmaster long ago. He lives somewhere down in Hampshire and has the air of a dilapidated country pile, gently harking back to better times but too modest to mention them. He’s about sixty-five and has been practising for over forty years. Although in his time he was pretty successful, he apparently fell into the same trap as many barristers and spent what he earned and now can’t afford to retire. He’s a very charming man.
‘I’m in my country clothes today, I’m afraid, BabyBarista,’ he said, as if somehow this wasn’t quite what was expected. In fact he looked the height of farmer fashion, with tweed jacket, elbow patches and cords, and I have to admit there was also the very slightest smell of mothballs although definitely not so much as to be in any way off-putting, but rather it just amplified the effect of his rustic charm. ‘Although my wife used to call it my Bunburying outfit,’ he continued. ‘Always used to put it on when I claimed to be needed back home by mid-afternoon. Pleased her no end when she saw me reaching for the tweed rather than the old pinstripe. Got to the point where she’d put the tweed jacket out with my breakfast and sometimes even hide the suit just to encourage me to take the earlier train home.’ He smiled and looked somewhat wistful and I didn’t like to ask further about his wife.
What I liked about him most of all was that he was the very first person in chambers to offer to make me coffee.
I, of course, declined.
Tuesday 17 October 2006
Day 12 (week 3): Paranoia
Today I’ve done around £4,000-worth of work for TheBoss. Copying and pasting one of TheBoss’s precedents and just changing a few minor details each time. He seemed very proud of this standard form document, as if it was somehow the magic which he added to the case. Hardly, though I can understand why he was concerned to try and justify some input, as once I’d got through the twenty sets of papers at £200 a shot, he didn’t even check them. Straight back to the solicitors for processing.