Law and Peace

by Tim Kevan

OldSmoothie was telling us all in tea today that the solicitor who’d brought someone along to time his every move and force costs down had emailed him, questioning how he could possibly justify charging £5,000 for a conference that in fact had lasted half an hour. Furthermore, he’d asked for a breakdown of said costs. OldSmoothie’s reply, or rather riposte, echoed an apocryphal bill once sent by a doctor and said:

  1. Conducting the conference: £250

  2. Knowing the answer to your problem owing to over thirty years of legal experience: £4,750

  Tuesday 19 August 2008

  Year 2 (week 47): FILF or FILTH?

  ‘I heard one of the mini-pupils describing me as a MILF today,’ said BusyBody. ‘Not sure if I should be flattered or offended.’

  ‘What is a MILF?’ asked OldRuin.

  BusyBody looked embarrassed and TheVamp stepped in. ‘It stands for “Mother I’d like to . . .” er, “do something rude to”.’

  She, too, looked a little sheepish although when OldRuin didn’t flinch she brightened up again and said, ‘I guess it could make barristers and solicitors BILFs and SILFs.’

  ‘So as a father, would that make me a FILF?’ asked OldSmoothie.

  ‘More like just plain filth,’ answered BusyBody, matter-of-factly.

  Wednesday 20 August 2008

  Year 2 (week 47): Expert-tampering

  Had another meeting with Smutton today after she summoned me with a message that TopFlirt had come through with some results.

  ‘Well, I now have something for you to go on. Your little belle came to see me last night and pretty much begged me not to tell TopFirst about her little thing with you.’

  I blushed and was unable to object before she continued. ‘Anyway, she finally spilled the beans. Seemed to suggest that your mate TopFirst is not as clean-cut as he likes to make out. She thinks he’s been expert-tampering in some way. The problem is she isn’t sure which expert.’

  Now, expert-tampering is something I have already been looking into after my earlier case against TopFirst, but up until now I haven’t discovered any link between the corrupt expert organisation and the experts TopFirst has been using. I said as much. As I did so, both Smutton and I looked at each other and saw the point at once.

  ‘I think you might want to start examining our own experts, BabyB.’

  With which I was dismissed from her presence.

  Thursday 21 August 2008

  Year 2 (week 47): BundleCard

  With his midlife crisis blossoming into full bloom, OldSmoothie was trying to show off at chambers tea this afternoon.

  ‘Yes, I’ve taken up jujitsu,’ he told the whole room.

  ‘What’s that?’ said BusyBody, unable to resist.

  ‘Martial art, my dear. Physical exertion mixed with grace and skill.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s not origami?’ she asked. ‘Making paper aeroplanes sounds about as much exercise as you’d manage.’

  UpTights, who continues to take her cue from BusyBody, moved in on the act. ‘Or maybe they just sit around practising Chinese burns. That’s about as sophisticated as your bullying ever gets.’

  I could see TheBusker warming up to the joke at this point.

  ‘Yes, I can see it now. Arriving at court and giving your opponent a wedgie as an opening gambit.’ He smiled. ‘Then you could challenge them to British bulldogs if that failed or maybe a skidding competition on the newly polished courtroom floor. But of course you’d also have the ultimate weapon, the playground nuclear option in your back pocket. I mean, just take along a pupil and a mini-pupil and you’ve got the potential to put an end to all resistance with a full-on bundle.’

  But OldSmoothie was not done. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I’ve also taken up mountain climbing . . .’

  ‘Oh, here we go,’ said UpTights.

  ‘Yes, last Sunday I rose at the crack of dawn and went up Snowdon.’

  ‘Lord Snowdon, I presume,’ said BusyBody.

  ‘Who’s Dawn?’ added TheVamp.

  Friday 22 August 2008

  Year 2 (week 47): Getting head at the Bar

  TheCreep’s plan for fame in the kingdom of the mini-pupils isn’t going quite as he planned. Unfortunately for him it seems that they have already sussed him out. A quick tour of the walls of the Temple will reveal that his posters have all been subtly defaced so that the first ‘a’ in the word ‘ahead’ has been deleted. Now, rather than promoting his earnest-sounding lecture – ‘TheCreep’s guide to getting ahead at the Bar’ – it instead reads more like a kind of sex manual for wiglets. TheCreep has realised his folly but it’s too late and for every poster he takes down, ten more appear in its place. Less subtly, people have also taken to sketching a brick wall over the bottom half of the poster and then adding a piece of TheCreep’s anatomy, hanging over the wall in the style of an old school chad drawing. They have then added a variety of slogans ranging from the obvious, ‘Wot no head?’ to ‘Wot no work?’ and ‘Wot no audience?’ to perhaps the most cruel of ‘Wot no friends?’

  All that was left was for TheVamp to add when she saw TheCreep come into tea this afternoon, ‘I see you’re now doing a course on oral abilities, MrCweepyWeepy. Probably the most important skill you need as a barrister, wouldn’t you agree?’

  Monday 25 August 2008

  Year 2 (week 48): FillyBlustering

  I went to see TheBoss today to discuss the possibility of the other side having tampered with one of our experts in the Moldy litigation. I figured that if anybody’s going to know about getting down and dirty it would be him.

  ‘Get real, BabyB,’ was the first thing he said. ‘Of course they’re going to try and get to our witnesses. The case is far too big for them not to. The problem’s always been in proving anything like that.’

  But the real body blow was yet to come. ‘Though I’d also be careful about what that filly TopFlirt’s telling you. If I were them my first tactic would be to try and prolong this case for so long that one by one our old clients die off. Not only might we lose our strongest test cases but remember that any future care or treatment claims also die with them too.’

  ‘But we’re almost ready for judgment from JudgeFetish,’ I replied.

  ‘Not if you start raising the issue of expert-tampering we’re not. For the judge to investigate any such allegations could take years.’

  Oh.

  Tuesday 26 August 2008

  Year 2 (week 48): Better than nothing . . .

  The dirty old judge OldFilth was at it again tonight. He whose atavistic sex-crazed lizard brain dominates in such a way that it’s as if he’s evolved on his own little Galapogos Islands, where judges still exercise a form of droit de seigneur. There was a Middle Temple student dinner this evening, an affair that as far as OldFilth is concerned implies lambs to the slaughter, and for which he always makes himself available as the esteemed guest of honour. Only it seems he isn’t terribly esteemed, even in the student community, and in fact he has become part of a running joke on Facebook with his own ironic fan page to boot.

  This might explain why the student representative who was introducing OldFilth sailed rather close to the wind in his little welcome speech. He stood up and declared ‘Fornication!’ loudly to the assembled gathering, whilst looking directly at OldFilth. This certainly grabbed everyone’s attention and it even led one of the older waitresses to drop a plate in shock. He then repeated the word a second time, garnering a quiet round of titters as he again looked at the sex-addled judge. Finally, he smiled and said, ‘For an occasion such as this . . .’

  Round one went to him and he wasn’t finished with OldFilth just yet, since he then went on to describe him as having had ‘a long and extinguished career’ and pausing for effect, before pretending to pass it off as a Freudian slip. A slip that would have been worthy of ClichéClanger had it not in fact been deliberately done.

  By this point OldFilth was not only very drunk but was also obviously extremely irritated, and when he stood up to give his ad
dress, he paused and cast a drunken eye over the expanse of the room before spluttering, ‘I hate [and then he used the word Gordon Ramsay has done so much to popularise] students.’

  Unsurprisingly, this brought the room to an abrupt silence. A silence that only deepened when he then looked directly at the prettiest student in the room and growled, ‘Still, it’s better than nothing, I suppose.’

  After which he sat down and tucked into his crème brûlée. Speech over.

  Wednesday 27 August 2008

  Year 2 (week 48): Therapy

  OldSmoothie was boasting last night to a couple of us in the clerks room about his latest sexual conquest. Apparently she was not only his opponent last week but she is also twenty years younger than him. UpTights walked in on the conversation and said, ‘You really are a sad, lonely and dirty old man. What is it they say? Only two things are certain in life: death and a certain corpulent old barrister who’d get up on a crack on a plate.’

  ‘That’s a bit rich coming from someone who’s been cocked more times than Davy Crocket’s musket,’ he replied.

  This seemed to hit home. Her face suddenly bore a startling resemblance to a boiled fist and she started shaking with what I can only assume was pent-up rage at the pompous silver fox, who was looking particularly irritating and smug today. But for once she seemed too angry to speak, and so she just stood there stamping her foot and shaking some more.

  Then OldSmoothie, with a nasty look on his face, bent down towards her and whispered, ‘I had a dream the other night, UpTights. I saw a young girl building a gilded scaffold. Somewhere she could climb up and hide from the world behind her empty smile. I saw her clambering ever higher, her bony fingers stretched to the sun. Then I saw the noose tightening around her neck and heard her solitary scream as she jumped from the same scaffold she had erected to help her survive.’

  UpTights had stopped shaking and was silent. Then astonishingly, she started crying, sobbing uncontrollably. OldSmoothie looked at her and as if it was the most natural thing in the world he took her in his arms and hugged her. UpTights eventually stopped sobbing, and indeed she seemed to turn almost catatonic. OldSmoothie pushed her away slightly, held her by the shoulders and gazed into her eyes. He then smiled flirtatiously and said, ‘You know, I could charge good money for therapy like that.’

  With which he was gone.

  Thursday 28 August 2008

  Year 2 (week 48): RugbyShuffle

  ‘It’s outrageous what’s happening to rugby at the moment,’ OldSmoothie said to me over coffee this morning.

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What’s been going on?’

  ‘Using fake blood to pretend they’re injured and get themselves off the pitch, that’s what. Been going on for years but they’re becoming less and less subtle and if they’re not careful they’re going to get caught.’

  ‘That sounds terrible,’ I said. ‘Could bring the whole game into disrepute.’

  ‘No, that’s not my complaint at all,’ he answered. ‘It’s that they’re risking the exposure of one of my best courtroom tricks for getting a witness off a sticky wicket.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, don’t play innocent with me, BabyB. Surely with a pupilmaster like TheBoss you were taught the old RugbyShuffle?’

  ‘I’m not sure I was. What does it involve?’

  ‘Ha. Well, I’m very surprised I’m able to teach one of TheBoss’s ex-pupils anything but let me explain. Strictly between these four walls, obviously.’

  Obviously.

  ‘Well, only for trusted clients and witnesses really. Either people you’ve got to know pretty well or experts who know which side their bread is buttered if you know what I mean.’

  I certainly did.

  ‘All comes down to the same principle as faking a rugby injury with comedy blood. Very simple really. If the witness is on the ropes or even taking the count, then you need to get them off the stand any which way you can.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So you just warn the witness beforehand that if this should happen then a spot of migraine might not go amiss. Could buy them twenty minutes and even, very occasionally, an adjournment. If it’s done well, then on their return the heat has been taken from the attack and the witness is back to fighting fitness. I’ve even known one barrister carry around his famous “nose-bleed handkerchief” for witnesses he was particularly worried about. One blow into that and the blood came pouring out.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Can’t believe you haven’t been using it. And you can see why I’m annoyed about the rugby case, now?’

  Well, quite.

  Friday 29 August 2008

  Year 2 (week 48): Trouble down mill

  I was confiding to OldRuin about OldSmoothie’s RugbyShuffle today. He smiled and then his face took on a more serious look.

  ‘You know, BabyB, whilst I wouldn’t presume to interfere or indeed to cast any aspersions, it might be an idea to give your own expert a little health check.’

  I looked at him blankly and he gave an enigmatic smile and then left me to it. It was only later in the day that I suddenly realised the full implications of what he was saying. Of course, I’d told him about our expert’s need for an unusual amount of breaks to relieve himself, something we all put down either to nerves or possibly something to do with his prostate. But I realised OldRuin wasn’t only alluding to the physical health of our doctor, rather he was quietly suggesting I examine his honesty.

  This signpost from OldRuin gave me added impetus to once again think about taking the investigation into our expert further. But what I certainly don’t want to do is upset the apple cart and delay the whole process by years. So I’m going to have to tread carefully. I’m also going to have to move pretty fast since I imagine that JudgeFetish will be planning to give his judgment in the next month or so. Once that’s done, other things, such as the Bar Standards Board complaint against me for insider dealing, will hove into view. Oh, and if we lose, I’ll get no money from the case, and who knows what SlipperySlope will decide to do about the loan he made to me on my mother’s behalf. And win or lose, there’s certainly no money coming in from OldRuin’s case either. Finally, to cap it all I’d end up spending a week dogsbodying for TopFirst and watching him get his red bag before me.

  None of the above bodes at all well for the next month.

  Chapter 12

  September: Red Bag

  Monday 1 September 2008

  Year 2 (week 49): Waiting for Frodo

  Awkward silences today as a chambers meeting sat waiting for TheCreep to arrive as he was scheduled to make a presentation.

  After a couple of minutes of strained conversation, TheBusker said, ‘A bit like Waiting for Godot.’

  ‘Or as ClichéClanger always put it, “Waiting to pass go”,’ OldSmoothie added.

  To which TheVamp replied, making reference to TheCreep’s lack of height, ‘Waiting for Frodo more like.’

  Tuesday 2 September 2008

  Year 2 (week 49): Drawn swords and driving sheep

  ‘I hear you’re about to be made a freeman of the City of London,’ said UpTights today.

  ‘Yes,’ said OldSmoothie, puffing out his chest as if we were meant to be impressed. ‘Should help my case for becoming a people’s peer as well.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said BusyBody. ‘Because being given some sort of masonic award for having eaten lots of dinners in an obscure City livery company is really in touch and down with the, er, people.’

  ‘What, are you in some way suggesting that it’s a meaningless, out-dated and irrelevant title given by a group of pompous nonentities to one of their own?’ asked UpTights sarcastically.

  ‘Although when you put it like that, I can see why he might draw the parallel with the Lords,’ smiled TheVamp.

  ‘But doesn’t it come with all sorts of rights?’ said TheCreep. ‘Like driving sheep over London Bridge and going about the City with a drawn sword.’

 
‘I’m afraid not,’ said HeadofChambers. ‘I once had to advise on those rights and I’m afraid they’re all bunkum. Exemption from tolls on animals and a few other minor things were about your lot even back in the day.’

  ‘Oh don’t worry, Mr CreepyWeepy,’ said TheVamp with mock sympathy. ‘You can draw your sword for me any time you like.’

  With which he went bright red and disappeared into the corner of the room.

  Wednesday 3 September 2008

  Year 2 (week 49): Ginny’s return

  With time running out I need to get something on the expert we were using in the Moldy litigation in relation to TopFirst. He’s hardly going to go around confessing to any corruption at the drop of a wig, so I have decided to fall back on Ginny’s services once again. This has meant my following our expert on and off since last Friday to see exactly where he hangs out at lunch and in the evenings, and then arranging for Ginny to casually bump into him.

  I’d failed last night in my predictions about where he might be going, but this evening Ginny once again got her man. It was not so difficult this time, as he’s a lot older than TopFirst and therefore even more prone to the flattering attentions of a beautiful young woman. This evening they simply shared some light banter over drinks in a bar. But she worked fast and on Friday they are booked in for dinner whilst his wife believes he’s away at a conference. We’ll see what she can get out of him then, so to speak.

  Thursday 4 September 2008

  Year 2 (week 49): Old-school settlements

  FanciesHimself, the junior clerk, was negotiating a fee for one of OldRuin’s cases today with a long-time solicitor friend of OldRuin. Apparently he was looking for an increase in the fee and the answer came back, ‘I’ll up the offer from pounds to guineas. I’m in favour of guineas and I think OldRuin should be too.’