Law and Disorder (29 page)

It was HeadClerk who answered, which gave me a bit of a fright. ‘Please wait whilst I see whether he is available. Who shall I say is calling?’

I gave the name of ThirdSix’s client, but it didn’t seem to ring any bells.

‘And what is your call in relation to?’

‘I was represented by ThirdSix yesterday and I am extremely unhappy with the service I received. I am a very busy man and either I speak to the head of chambers immediately and we see if we can resolve this privately or I shall simply send off a complaint to the Bar Standards Board. You choose.’

‘I see, Sir. Yes. Please wait a moment.’

Thirty seconds later and I heard the dulcet tones of HeadofChambers. ‘Er, hello. Yes. I believe you wish to talk about your case with ThirdSix? How can I help, exactly?’

‘I am very sorry to have to say this but he singularly failed in representing me yesterday.’

‘In what way, may I ask?’

‘He fought the whole thing without having any of the papers in my case.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘Because I saw the names of the parties on the various sheets of papers and they weren’t ours.’

‘Did you mention this at the time?’

‘I tried interrupting him during the hearing but he told me to be quiet. Afterwards he shook my hand and rushed off before I could say anything else.’

‘I see.’

Then I went in for the kill. ‘You see, a mistake is one thing. We all make mistakes. But about halfway through it was clear to me that he suddenly realised that he had the wrong papers. Yet still he continued. Such dishonesty reflects badly not only on the professionalism of your own chambers but of the bar as a whole.’

‘Yes, quite.’

‘Now, just so you know, I’m not at this stage interested in suing him for negligence or anything like that. It’s just that I am extremely concerned that this might happen to someone else. You do understand?’

‘I understand completely.’

‘And in those circumstances it seems I have two choices.The most obvious is to pursue a formal complaint through the Standards Board against both ThirdSix and your chambers. However, personally I would rather not get involved further and would also like to keep my solicitor out of it as he and I have become friends. Therefore, my preferred path would be to hand the matter over to you. You can then call me when it has been dealt with and I can decide whether that puts an end to it or not.’

‘That sounds eminently sensible, if I may say so.’

I then gave him the telephone number of my ‘pay as you go’ mobile phone.

CHAPTER 11

August: Showdowns

Use the conquered foe to augment one’s own strength.

Sun Tzu,
The Art of War

Wednesday 1 August 2007

Day 212 (week 44): Owning up

Today ThirdSix was well and truly in the dock. It was Worrier who first told me what had happened.

‘It’s pretty terrible, BabyB. Apparently, HeadofChambers hauled him in again this morning and in no uncertain terms told him that he’d better explain exactly what went on at the hearing. He also said that if he didn’t, the whole of chambers could end up with a complaint being made against it to the Bar Standards Board.’

‘And how did he react to that?’

‘Well, eventually he owned up and admitted that he had had the wrong papers at court. But when he started suggesting that someone like TopFirst or even the clerks might have switched them, HeadofChambers interrupted him and told him that he should take responsibility for his own actions and pointed out that as soon as he realised they were the wrong papers he should have owned up. Well, as you can imagine, ThirdSix had no answer to this.’

Shame.

After that I received a call from HeadofChambers himself on the ‘pay as you go’ mobile. ‘Er, yes, this is HeadofChambers. I am pleased to say that I have now dealt with our little, er, problem.’

‘In what way, may I ask?’

‘I have formally disciplined ThirdSix and I can assure you that such an incident will never happen again. In addition, all this will be taken into account when it comes to deciding whether chambers decide to keep him on next month.’

‘I see. So you are fully satisfied that this will not be repeated with any other clients?’

‘I am.’

‘That is all I ask. Consider this an end to the matter. Good day.’

Friday 3 August 2007

Day 214 (week 44): SweatShop

Word has it that despite the fact that the Inns of Court are currently crawling with mini-pupils, there are many candidates who are still struggling to get work placements. Half as a joke, half serious, I decided to post the following on a couple of internet bulletin boards the other day: ‘Pupil barrister offers informal mini-pupillage based at Inner Temple library. Good reference guaranteed.’ I’ve already had ten applications and so I’m conducting interviews in the library this evening. Little do they know that I’ll take them all on for the next month and get them each to do some research on my behalf for a different member of chambers I am trying to impress.

Best of all, forget the minimum wage. This work comes for free.

Monday 6 August 2007

Day 215 (week 45): RackItUp

When I got up this morning I thought I was destined for a relaxing day trawling through papers.Until,that was,I arrived into chambers to be confronted by HeadClerk looking particularly serious. ‘Mr BabyBarista. I need you to get over the road to court six in twenty minutes. Million pound business dispute. Just need you to hold the fort for HeadofChambers.’

Hold the fort? Oh, the art of the understatement. So I arrived at court ten minutes early thinking I might find HeadofChambers there to give me a little background. No such luck and I rang HeadClerk to ask where I could find him.‘That’s a good question,Mr BabyBarista.’ He paused.‘You see, he has a case in court thirty-two and another in court twenty. Oh, and then let’s see . . . there’s another in court fifty­six.’ He paused again. ‘That’s in addition to yours.’

Now don’t get me wrong.I’d already heard about HeadofChambers’s notorious money-making scheme whereby he gets juniors to do all the work and he just turns up for at most an hour a day on each of his cases. Apparently he shows his face, makes a point of looking deep in consultation with his junior and then dashes off to the next case. That’s one thing. But what I discovered today was that his scheme falls down when one of those hard-working juniors is ill. That’s when the QC should be there to step in. Unless, that is, you’re HeadofChambers and you’re already juggling too many cases and therefore have to rely on a BabyBarista completely out of his depth. When I finally got hold of him, rushing between two of his courts, the most that I got out of him was, ‘Don’t worry, BabyB. All you have to do today is to sit tight whilst the other side cross-examine our witness. Just keep a good note. You’ll be all right.’

Which would have been OK were it not for the fact that my opponent stopped his cross-examination mid-morning. The judge knew what was going on and was not amused. I asked for an adjournment in order that I might consult with HeadofChambers.

‘Mr BabyBarista. Either you are prepared for this case, which would mean that such an adjournment would be unnecessary . . .’ He peered at me over his glasses and then continued, ‘or you are not sufficiently prepared, in which case you would be in breach of the Code of Conduct for accepting the instructions.’ He looked at me and smiled, a cruel, smug kind of smile which said everything. I was skewered. I stood up and tried to buy some time before my career came crashing to a premature end.‘Er, My Lord. Er, if it pleases the court. Er . . .’

‘Yes, Mr BabyBarista. What is it to be?’

I stumbled on a little more before my solicitor tapped me on the shoulder.I turned around and he handed me a note which said,‘No further questions. Call the next witness, Mr James.’

‘Er, My Lord, I have no further questions for this witness. Unless you have any questions, My Lord, I would like to call the next witness, Mr James.’

Given that I knew absolutely nothing about the case whatsoever, I don’t know how I even managed to get through to lunch, particularly with my opponent capitalising on my difficulties by keeping his own questions to a minimum. To make matters worse, all that I got from HeadofChambers at lunchtime when I told him precisely where he could stick his case as far as the afternoon was concerned was, ‘There’s the spirit, BabyB. I knew I could rely on you. I’ll take it from here. Tally ho!’

‘Ha!’ said OldSmoothie when I told him later. ‘He’s not called RackItUp for nothing, you know.’

I didn’t know.

‘And that’s not just because he racked up twelve grand today or even that the whole thing’s a complete racket. It’s his particular skill, like a rack on a train, to hold aloft numerous cases at once which is most impressive.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s like snakes and ladders, BabyB,’ he continued. ‘You climb to the top of one ladder only to go hurtling down to the bottom just a short time later. Happens to us all. You may have been a big cheese at university, but as a pupil you go back to being pond life. Same for HeadofChambers. Just wait until he becomes a judge and gets passed all the dud cases. Just snakes and ladders, BabyB. That’s all it is.’

Small consolation, I must say, but OldSmoothie wasn’t finished as he started to muse, ‘You know it’s all about marking time, this job. Your year of call and the number of hours you spend on a particular piece of work. It’s all that matters. Clock up the hours, clock up the years and the rewards will follow.’

For once he wasn’t sounding smug or arrogant. Almost slightly sad. Well, it was as close as OldSmoothie might get to having feelings anyway. ‘I just wonder sometimes where those hours have gone. Whether it was all worth it.’

Then it was as if he heard himself saying this and he snapped back to life. With a clearing of his throat and in a particularly deep voice he said, ‘But anyway, enough of all that nonsense. Wouldn’t have it any other way, BabyB.’

With which he dismissed me with a wave of his hand.

Tuesday 7 August 2007

Day 216 (week 45): Applications for tenancy

BusyBody’s started getting up my nose again. Just when I thought she’d finally given up on any chance of a tenancy whatsoever, she starts spreading the word that despite the scandal surrounding her pregnancy, she’ll still be applying on the basis that she might start after a few months of maternity leave. The irony is that this decision is probably as a result of my having damaged the other pupils to such an extent that she feels she may be back in with a chance. Anyway, I got an opportunity to mislead her yesterday after all the pupils received a letter from HeadofChambers formally inviting us to apply for tenancy. As I was about to leave in the evening I noticed that BusyBody’s letter was still there unopened and with no one around I took it away and spent twenty minutes retyping it.

Dear BusyBody,

In line with our current policy on pupillage, I should like to invite you formally to apply for tenancy. In order to assist us with our application, it would be of great help if you could provide us with an up-to-date CV and a letter explaining why you think you should be taken on, along with copies of three pieces of work you have done for different members of chambers.

We also wish you to undergo a medical examination as part of our formal risk assessment for tenancy. It will consist merely of a brief check-up by a GP. Whilst we assure you that the results will not affect your chances, you are within your rights to refuse any such examination. However, if you are happy to consent to these arrangements, please come to the main chambers conference room at 4.30 p.m. on Wednesday 8th August (i.e. tomorrow) when it will be used as a temporary surgery (chambers tea being moved elsewhere). Please could you bring with you a copy of your application documents along with a urine sample for the GP in a sealed plastic container.

I would ask you to note that your application is absolutely confidential and I would therefore ask that you do not consult with anyone else during the process.

May I take this opportunity to wish you the very best of luck with your application.

Yours sincerely, HeadofChambers

Wednesday 8 August 2007

Day 217 (week 45): SuperSample

Today I made sure that I was in chambers tea in the conference room bang on time. Ready and waiting. Wondering if BusyBody would have taken the bait. What I’d counted on most was that as someone who aspires to authority, she has never been one to question what such authority might have to say. Well, come 4.30

p.m. there were about twenty members of chambers quietly sipping on their tea when there was an ominous knock at the door. Since barristers don’t knock and the clerks never interrupt tea, there was silence. HeadofChambers then boomed ‘enter’. At which point BusyBody opened the door holding her urine sample out in front of her. The silence continued and was eventually broken by BusyBody with a stuttering,‘I . . . I . . . I was just after the medical for tenancy. I think I have the wrong room.’

More silence, though you could see lots of pennies dropping in lots of different heads. Eventually HeadofChambers said, ‘Er . . . I think you might find, BusyBody, that someone has played a practical joke on you.’