Confessions of a Barrister

If there’s one thing that certain types of men like nothing more than doing – it’s compiling lists. Me and my university mates would do it all the time – ten greatest FA Cup goals, ten greatest Rock and Roll deaths, ten best albums of all time; you know the type of thing – and, yes, some of the lists that we would compile were law based. I thought I’d share a few of them with you over the course of this book. First up, in no particular order, is The Ten Greatest Trials of All Time.

1 1. The Trial of Oscar Wilde (1895) – this had it all: sex, celebrity, wit and scandal – all in front of a packed Old Bailey as Wilde defended his honour by bringing a charge of criminal libel against the father of his young lover, the Earl of Queensberry. Not surprisingly, given that Queensberry could call a room full of men who had had ‘sexual encounters’ with Wilde, even Thomas Clarke, the leading Silk representing him, was unable to bring home the case. The cross-examination of Wilde by Queensberry’s Silk, the future Irish politician Edward Carson, is legendary.

2  2. Donoghue v Stevenson (1932) – you might not have heard of this case, but you will certainly have felt its implications. This case established the international concept of negligence, and introduced the legal principle that in some circumstances we owe others a duty of care. Mrs Donoghue bought a bottle of ginger beer, drank it, fell ill, then discovered that there was a dead snail inside the bottle. She sued the drinks manufacturer, one Stevenson, and eventually won on appeal to the House of Lords, with the court declaring by a majority that the drinks manufacturer owed a ‘duty of care’ to the ultimate consumer – a judgement that has kept hundreds of lawyers in work ever since.

3  3. The Trial of OJ Simpson (1995) – another one involving celebs and sex. Former American football star and film actor OJ Simpson was accused of shooting dead his wife and her lover. The evidence appeared overwhelming, but ace attorney Johnnie Cochrane managed to convince the jury after a year and a half long trial that there was reasonable doubt.

4  4. The Trial of Jeremy Thorpe (1978) – back to the Old Bailey, and the trial that made the name and reputation of George Carman QC. Jeremy Thorpe, the leader of the Liberal Party at the time, stood accused of conspiring to murder his ‘gay lover’, Norman Scott, after Scott’s dog was shot in rather suspicious circumstances. Carman (with a bit of help from the trial Judge) managed to persuade the jury that there was nothing in it.

5  5. Roe v Wade (1973) – a landmark American Supreme Court trial that established that a woman has the right to control over her own body, including the right to abort a foetus. Even four decades later, this one still causes ructions amongst the American people as the right-wing and liberal politicians continue to argue about its merits.

6  6. Brown v The Board of Education (1954) – staying with the American Supreme Court, this time a landmark civil rights ruling that it was unconstitutional for children to be segregated according to their racial background after the parents of black schoolchildren in Topeka, Kansas, challenged the racist policy that allowed discrimination amongst schoolchildren. (And quite bloody right too!)

7  7. The Trial of Thomas More (1535) – there are quite a few grisly trials to choose from around the time of the Reformation, but my personal favourite is the trial of Sir Thomas More. More, former Lord Chancellor and a formidable scholar and philosopher, was accused and tried for High Treason. During the trial he was cross-examined by no less than six of the country’s most esteemed legal and constitutional minds as they tried to get him to vow allegiance to the King – he didn’t budge, and despite more than holding his own against the onslaught of questions, they convicted him and chopped off his head.

8  8. The Trial of Oscar Pistorius (2014) – Pistorius, the double amputee superstar of South African sport, shot his beautiful model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in the middle of the night on Valentine’s Day 2013. Oscar’s defence was that he ‘Thought she was an intruder.’ Perhaps surprisingly, you might think, the Judge agreed and he was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of ‘culpable homicide’. So according to the Judge it was all just a horrible accident.

9  9. The Nuremberg Trials (1946) – described as ‘the greatest trial in history’, 21 senior Nazis in the dock, charged with various war crimes committed during the Second World War, ranging from the execution of prisoners of war to genocide. Hartley Shawcross and Robert Jackson prosecuting, and an indictment as long as an airport paperback. One year and one month later, twelve were sentenced to death, three were acquitted and the rest – the ones who hadn’t committed suicide, that is – were given various prison sentences.

10 10. The Trial of Jesus Christ (approx. 33AD) – a bit lacking in the niceties of courtroom procedure, but a significant trial nonetheless. According to the New Testament, Christ is charged with blasphemy by the Sanhedrin (an assembly consisting of at least 23 of the cleverest men who would determine the application of Jewish law) in Jerusalem. To this charge, he doesn’t appear to mount much of a defence. Indeed, by asserting that he was ‘the Son of God’, he probably made things a bit worse. After being convicted, as we all know too well, Jesus was taken to Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor, who upheld the demands for crucifixion. I sometimes wonder how things would have panned out if the trial had taken place in one of our Magistrates Courts, with Jesus being represented by the duty solicitor – ‘Your Worships, my client, Mr Christ, intends to plead not guilty to the charge. His defence? Er, he’ll be running the “I am the rightful Messiah Son of God” defence. What do you mean that’s not a defence in law?’

Dinners, beers and ‘what would you do if you weren’t a barrister?’ (#ulink_c561abbf-b8c5-5c57-bdff-77ebcba3c12a)

Most Friday nights after court I meet up with Ed and Johnny, two old university mates, at the Erskine Pub near chambers. After a few pints and the stress of the week waned, we reminisce about our happy student days. We all studied law at Leeds – oh how wonderful it was to be a student: Thursday nights at the Students’ Union Bar dancing to Oasis and Blur and trying to tap off with girls, failing, then watching the fights break out at the kebab shop and trying desperately hard not to look like a student, because the students usually got their heads kicked in. Days missing lectures, and trying to understand contract law and dreaming about our futures as brilliant barristers.

Most of the students on our course wanted to be solicitors, so we were drawn together as aspiring barristers. In our final year we came down to our Inn in London together to do our dinners. Dinners, or dining and the Inns, are another little secret of the strange world of the Bar. It works like this: once you have completed your law degree and decided you want to become a barrister, you have to join an Inn. There are four Inns: Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn.

Once you have joined your Inn you have to do ‘dining’. That is, you have to go to your Inn and have a meal in the company of other barristers and student barristers. It doesn’t matter how brilliant you are, it doesn’t matter if you are Plutarch, Petrocelli or Perry bleeding Mason, if you haven’t done the dinners, you won’t get called to the Bar and you won’t be able to practise as a barrister. And it’s not just one dinner, oh no, there are twelve dinners. So there you have it, a pre-requisite to becoming a barrister is eating food.

Ed, Johnny and I decided to join Gray’s Inn. I can’t remember why now, I think the dinners were probably the cheapest. Once we had joined the Inn, every couple of weeks we put on our best clobber and went down to London. I have to say that at first it was exciting to go down to the Great Hall of Gray’s Inn. You got to wear a robe and, occasionally, sit next to a proper Queen’s Counsel or High Court Judge, who were, on the whole, quite kind and encouraging. One even offered me snuff (which caused a bit of confusion as I thought he was offering me marijuana, which probably isn’t a mistake I’d make now).

The three of us were state-school boys; my parents were old-fashioned socialists. I wasn’t used to this kind of pomp and ceremony, so wearing your best suit, listening to Latin prayers, drinking too much wine and port and then going on for a few beers at a London club with girls called Prunella, Jemima and Beatrice was new and fun.

But, some time around dinner number six, things started to become a bit tiresome. There are only so many times you can listen to some crusty old Silk tell you how difficult it is for young barristers; or even worse, some chinless, limp-coiffed, posh boy called Giles tell you he has got six different offers of pupilage and he’s not quite sure which one to take, when you’ve been turned down by every set you’ve applied to.

Still, it was a rite of passage and afterwards the three of us moved to London together and shared a flat in Catford. It was great. We were all in different chambers with different people but we came back each night and sat around drinking, eating takeaway curries and talking about our days, our cases and our clients. We felt we’d done well. We’d worked hard, we’d passed our exams and we felt we’d achieved. Getting to the Bar. Becoming a professional. Mixing with the privileged and the clever and those who were clearly destined for great things. It felt like we had a covenant with the state and society. We’d done the work and now we hoped that we’d be rewarded for our efforts.

For the three of us, it was all so easy, so straightforward; our dreams were being fulfilled, our expectations achieved, we would become the barristers that we had aspired to be.

After a couple of years Johnny moved out to live with Fiona, so we replaced him with this weird guy called Vikram, which didn’t really work, as he was a nurse who kept some odd hours. And then Ed met Joanne and he moved out, then Vikram moved out – and me, well, I moved into my own flat.

On my own.

Which, actually, I don’t mind at all.

I think.

Anyway, Johnny is at the Criminal Bar in a set similar to mine, and Ed works at a specialist Chancery set.

As I’ve already alluded to, the Chancery Bar is very different from the Criminal Bar. It is full of particularly clever, academic types who rarely talk to one another and make a load of money. They all seem to be called Rupert or Henry. I’m not sure that Ed fits in. He tells us he works for oil companies and multinationals, but I’m never really quite sure what he actually does. Unlike criminal barristers or family barristers, he doesn’t tell you about his cases, in fact the only time he did, we had to tell him to stop because it was just too boring.

Johnny, on the other hand, doesn’t stop telling you about his cases. He has a natural and infectious enthusiasm – if he were a dog he would have a constantly wagging tail.

On this particular Friday night, they were already there when I arrived, standing by the bar.

They greeted me with the universal hand gesture for ‘what do you want to drink?’ and I replied that I’d have a glass of stout.

‘Well, gents,’ said Johnny, pausing only to take a large glug of beer from his glass, ‘I’ve got some news.’

I assumed that he was going to announce that he and Fiona were having a baby. They’d been married for a year (or is it two?) so it seemed kind of logical that they were going to start a family. But I was completely wrong.

Johnny took a deep breath. ‘I’m leaving the Bar,’ he said.

We both looked at him.

‘What?’ said Ed.

‘Yes,’ he continued, ‘I’ve had my fill. I owe a ton of money, I’m being paid bugger all for working every hour, there’s no chance of career advancement – so I’ve decided: I’m getting out while I’m still young enough.’

At this point a rather strange concoction of emotions filled my mind – first, there was an evil streak of pleasure, Johnny leaving meant one less criminal barrister to compete with; then there was jealousy, at his luck at having something else to go to; then there was respect that he had the balls to get up and do something else; finally, there was sadness, the old team was being broken up.

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Ed.

Johnny took another big intake of breath. ‘I’ve got a job as a croupier in a hotel in Dubai.’

We both exclaimed, ‘What?!’

‘Yes. I start next month. The salary is ace. More money per month than I can earn prosecuting burglars and bottom pinchers, I can tell you.’

Now my main emotion was jealousy – a croupier in a hotel, for a ruck of money, it’s genius, why didn’t I think of it?

‘What does Fiona think?’ I asked.

‘She’s mad for it. She’s got a job in the same hotel.’

Ed shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it, you must be bonkers.’

‘Look,’ argued Johnny forcefully, ‘what’s the point; we’re both lower-middle-class kids who went to university because we were told it was for the best. We got good jobs, in good professions, because we were told that was what we had to do, and we got riddled with debt for the privilege. Now, we can’t afford a mortgage, can’t afford a pension, can’t afford to start a family. It’s a joke.’

Johnny had clearly rehearsed this argument before. I imagined him putting it to his parents and in-laws. Leaving the Bar will have made no sense to them, but it made perfect sense to me.

‘A croupier,’ said Ed with unconcealed contempt, ‘come on, you’re having a laugh.’

‘It’s okay for you, Ed,’ I said, ‘but Johnny’s right, for us it feels like we’re banging our heads against brick walls. We’ve not had a pay rise for years, in fact it just gets harder and harder to make a living.’

‘Yep,’ continued Johnny, ‘you boys at the Chancery Bar have got no idea, I was talking to Shanna earlier, you know, from my chambers?’

We both nod and Johnny continued, ‘She’s about five years call, and this week she went to the Magistrates Court for a firm of solicitors to do a trial in the Youth Court, and do you know how much they paid her? Her bus fare, that’s what. They knew she’d do it because she wanted to impress them, in the hope of getting more work. I tell you, fellas, it’s a joke, and I’ve had enough.’