Law and Disorder (3 page)

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 keeping 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.

TheBoss himself had important business. One of the few solicitors who provides him with any decent employment was in town today and expected the works. Lunch was therefore taken at 11.30 a.m. and TheBoss wasn’t seen again until 5 p.m. Not surprising that he didn’t check my drafting really, given the state he was in by that time. Made some snide remark about no amount of work he does being enough to please his wife, and left. District Line to Parsons Green.

For all their supposed independence, most barristers seem to live in a state of complete paranoia and spend so much time kowtowing to solicitors that their independence is worth even less than their pride.

Friday 20 October 2006

Day 15 (week 3): ClichéClanger

Last night I was working until about midnight on a skeleton argument for TheBoss’s case today after he’d dumped it on me before swanning off mid-afternoon. All on behalf of an insurance company which wants to use a technicality to ensure a disabled old lady doesn’t get the damages she deserves. So much for Atticus Finch.

But it did at least mean that I finally got to see him do some work today, and in the grand surroundings of the Lord Mayor’s Court, no less. His opponent spent an hour setting out his grounds of appeal to the judge, who looked decidedly unimpressed. Then it was TheBoss’s big moment. He stood up and offered up my skeleton argument.‘I’ve summarised my case in there,Your Honour.Do you have any questions?’

‘No.’

Which was all there was to it. He won and got his costs, which at £3,000 worked out at over £200 a word on my reckoning. Another hard day at the coalface.

Fun to meet TheBoss’s solicitor, though. I’m going to call him ClichéClanger. He’s in his late fifties with a worldly air, a neatly trimmed beard and a hangdog slouch inside his old suit which makes him look like he was born with his hands in his pockets. But it is his language which truly distinguishes him with his wonderful habit of coming out with clichés which he has twisted in some tiny way in his own mind, occasionally adding a sprinkling of French just for good measure, for example:

‘Well, we don’t want to keep all our
oeufs
in one basket, now do we?’

‘I mean, Rome wasn’t built, you know, yesterday, was it?’