Confessions of a Barrister

Mrs Murdoch had a point, but she hadn’t been there, she hadn’t seen the fear in the eyes of Mr West, she hadn’t seen the way he had capitulated so readily to his wife’s demands. Bloody hell, she hadn’t seen the perfect sausage-shaped burn mark on his chest. There was no way Mr West was going to change his mind, all he wanted was to get out of his marriage and as far away from his lunatic curling-tong-wielding wife as he could.

‘Have you spoken to Mrs West?’ I asked.

‘Her thoughts are irrelevant,’ Mrs Murdoch barked back at me, ‘but when her husband next has his hands around her throat, I’m sure she’ll want to know why her barrister didn’t bother to obtain an injunction to prevent that from happening.’

‘It won’t happen,’ I said. But I didn’t sound sure. I didn’t sound confident at all.

I knew that Ronnie Sherman would have told her where to go and remind her that he knew best, but I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t confident enough to say that. I wasn’t experienced enough. I didn’t have a red bag.

Instead I just shrugged and muttered an apology.

Clem tried his best to appease her. ‘Is there anything else that we can do to remedy this?’ he said.

‘No,’ said Mrs Murdoch forcefully, ‘you’ve done quite enough already.’ She turned to me. ‘Mr Winnock,’ she said, ‘I can assure you that you will never receive another brief from Whinstanley Cooper.’ And, with that, she got up and left, her nose in the air. Kelly followed her, but as she went she shot me a look, a slight movement of her head – did it denote sympathy? Or perhaps pity?

‘You muppet,’ said Clem.

‘Look, Clem,’ I said, ‘my client had branded her husband with a hair-curling device. Even if I had carried out my instructions, there’s not a Judge in the world that I could have persuaded that she was in need of any protection. And besides, she got the house and the car.’

‘Yes, and Whinstanley’s are denied the drawn out and lucrative divorce case that would have happened if you hadn’t sorted it out for them in half an hour this morning. They’ve lost out on thousands of pounds of legal fees because of you.’

The penny dropped.

He gave me a cold look. ‘You do realise, Mr Winnock, that when it comes to Whinstanley’s, you are now NIHWTLBOE.’

He spat out each of the letters.

‘NI what?’ I asked.

‘It stands for “Not If He Was The Last Barrister On Earth”. Every firm of solicitors has its NIHWTLBOE list.’ He now pronounced it newt-ill-bow. ‘You lost them money, you won’t work for them again, and you’ve just got to hope that Mrs Murdoch doesn’t tell her friends about this the next time the Law Society has one of its shindigs.’

I started to mumble a tentative defence – I started to tell him how my instinct told me that I was doing the right thing – but he had already lost interest, he had already turned away from me and was looking at a computer screen. He completely ignored my protestations of innocence.

‘You’d better check in later to see what you’re doing tomorrow, Mr Winnock. At the moment you’re free.’

I nodded. I had always thought that these were the most damning words that a junior barrister could possibly hear: ‘You are free tomorrow.’ They meant that tomorrow no one wants to employ you, no one wants you to represent them, you will be out of court, unemployed, earning absolutely zilch.

I now knew that these were not the most damning words a barrister could hear, I now knew that the most damning words were, ‘Not If He Was The Last Barrister On Earth.’

Instinct and the case of Harvey Mannerley (#ulink_ca139dcc-945f-59e7-b73b-c951edc86037)

Back in my room at chambers, my three roommates Amir, Jenny and Angus were crouched over Amir’s desk looking at some photographs of a pavement.

As I walked in, Amir shouted across at me, ‘What do you think, Russ,’ he said, ‘we’re having a debate as to whether this paving stone is a hazard or not. Angus thinks that it is, Jenny thinks that it isn’t.’

‘Course it bloody isn’t,’ interjected Jenny, ‘only if you were completely pissed and wearing high heels, and then it’s your own fault, frankly.’

‘Was the complainant wearing high-heeled shoes and pissed?’ I asked.

‘No,’ said Amir, ‘he was a pensioner.’

‘Well they’re always falling over,’ said Jenny.

‘They need to be protected,’ said Angus, ‘the duty of care is totally with the council on this.’

‘What do you think, Ammie?’ I asked.

He looked back at the pavement – ‘My instinct says that this will settle,’ he told me.

And there it is, that word: instinct. It’s absolutely fundamental to our line of work. The ability to sniff the air and guess correctly what’s being blown towards you; the ability, learned from experience, to accurately predict what will happen in a given case.

Instinct is vital because, as barristers, we are often in a state of ignorance. Think about it: I am not allowed to converse with a jury, I have to guess what they will make of evidence, what they will understand and what they will not. Similarly, I have to second-guess the position of a Judge. I have to instinctively know what will annoy him or her, and what will soothe. And finally, I occasionally have to reach into the mind of a criminal or a client, work out what they are thinking and what advice will be best for them in their particular circumstances.

I’m not saying that I always get it right, what I am saying is that instinct is important and it’s not something that can be taught in a book or in a lecture theatre, it is something that is acquired over years of practice, it is something that is honed by getting things wrong, by irritating Judges, by watching others.

It is one of the reasons why barristers get so cross when successive governments have tried to undermine our profession by reducing our rates of pay and allowing others who are not as qualified, not as experienced, who don’t possess the instinct, to do our job.

In the case of Porky Pie West my instinct told me that she would not get the injunction she wanted, my instinct also told me that the deal that was being offered was a good one, and that she should take it.

Okay, it was a quick decision. It could turn out to be the wrong decision. As Mrs Murdoch said, I’ll only know if Mr West comes back and throttles his wife. But, somehow, I don’t think that that will happen – somehow, my instinct tells me that out of Porky and her branded husband, the most likely person to see the inside of a courtroom again will be her.

As my colleagues discuss pavements, my mind goes back to the case of Harvey Mannerley.

It was one of my first cases, and it showed me just how important instinct was going to be in my career as a barrister.

Harvey Mannerley was a rather pathetic individual in his mid-twenties. He was accused of harassing an eighteen-year-old girl he had met whilst they were both working in a supermarket warehouse. The girl was called India Williams. She was about to go off to university and found herself, as part of a summer job, working alongside Harvey – well, I say alongside, the reality is that India didn’t really take much notice of Harvey.

Where she was young and beautiful with a radiant, gleamingly effervescent smile that was just about to be unleashed onto the world in a million exciting ways, Harvey was a sad man with pallid grey skin and black hair that sat on his head as a greasy afterthought. He was thin and gaunt and had the look of someone who spent hours in his own bedroom, wanking.

He convinced himself that India was smiling for him and he embarked upon a campaign of letter writing. He would send her long, sinister anonymous letters in which he would tell her in fairly unsubtle detail what he wanted to do to her. In short, he was a stalker.

The evidence was overwhelming – his fingerprints were found on some of the envelopes and a handwriting expert had stated that there was extremely strong evidence to suggest that the handwriting on the letters belonged to Harvey Mannerley.

The case took place in small town Magistrates Court. I was young, barely 24, fresh out of Bar School – with very little experience and very little instinct. I was told that I wouldn’t have a solicitor with me – you rarely do in the Magistrates Court – and my instructions simply invited me to do my best in the face of very strong evidence.

I met Harvey in the reception area and took him down to a small, airless, windowless conference room in the basement. He wouldn’t look me in the eye; something that now, with a few years under my belt, I know is a bad sign. Back then, I knew nothing.

I sat him down and after introducing myself decided to tell him how grave the evidence was. ‘I’ve got be honest with you, Mr Mannerley,’ I said, ‘I think you’ve got a few problems today.’

At this he looked up at me, seething. ‘I’m not going guilty,’ he spat, ‘there’s no way I’m going guilty.’

‘No one’s trying to make you plead to anything,’ I said.

I paused. The pause was a mistake, a sign of my weakness, my inexperience and lack of confidence, a sign that I wasn’t in control. I now continued in a rather stuttering way. ‘I respect and appreciate that, that’s fine, but, Mr Mannerley—’

Before I could say anything more, he interjected again, ‘I ain’t pleading guilty. No way. I ain’t done nothing.’

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘then can you tell me why your fingerprints are on those envelopes?’