Pangloss

The Master called me last night. My first and original Master, so this was a surprise. It was about ten o'clock, but he always did have a tendency to call out of hours.

I bumped into him last week at the RCJ when we were both appearing before the applications judge in the Family Division on urgent ex parte cases. Mine was a simple matter, but his was a suspected child abduction. I picked up quite a lot of knowledge about this with the next Master I went to (I always suspected this conceit might eventually unravel! - the Austin Powers guy) and was able to make some useful suggestions about disclosure orders.

He suggested on the way back to chambers that I write up something straightforward for general child care family practitioners and include some precedents, so that in urgent situations like his they would have some useful pointers. I'd been thinking of sorting out some precedents for myself anyway, so I was happy to agree. He then suggested, schemer that he is, that he could circulate it around chambers and it might help my chances at the tenancy vote.

I was sceptical about the wisdom of this. Apparently a couple of pupils were rejected three years ago because they were perceived to be too pushy (they were women - I bet men would have been perceived as ambitious and go-get-em). I thought it was all a bit obvious, so I dragged my feet. I bumped into him yesterday and agreed to finish it off, but told him I'd rather he sat on it until after the meeting.

He called to say that he thought it was a really good piece of work and very useful, but that on reflection he agreed with me and that it was not wise to circulate it this close to the meeting. Rather dispiritingly, he then went on in Panglossian style to say that whatever the outcome it would probably be for the best and that he really didn't know what the outcome would be. To cap it, he then said that he would definitely try to be at the meeting and didn't think he had anything else on.

"!" said I.

Then I managed to say, fairly calmly, 'I'd appreciate your vote, Master.'

He's thinking of voting by proxy, he says. He very much supports my application, but if asked during the meeting he would say that he doesn't think that chambers needs another junior at the moment, as we are quite quiet work-wise. Apparently this is very much the view of some of the juniors and he would have to agree with them if asked. So he'd rather not be there, so they can't ask him.

In some ways this is probably worse news for The Other Pupil than for me as I have a bit of my own work, but it still isn't exactly good news, whichever way one looks at it. How strange is it going to look, I wonder, that one of my own pupilmasters hasn't turned up to the meeting?

The Next Generation

A new generation of pupils started in chambers yesterday. There was no fanfare or announcement, nor even an email. I did not know their names, and only came to know of their existence because I heard one's Master introducing her to a passer-by in the corridor. Pretty much everyone in chambers will be in the same state of ignorance as myself.

I arranged for myself, The Other Pupil and one of last year's pupils to take them both out for a quick drink after work. In the event the other pupil from last year and one of the other junior tenants came along as well, which was good. I thought it would at least give them an opportunity to talk to each other, and a useful platform for talking to others as well. Although how much longer I'll be here is still an open question. I feel like I'm on a less terminal version of Death Row, with a Supreme Court reprieve vaguely pending.

When I started I certainly had no welcome to chambers and had no idea what to make of the whole thing. It was why I started this blog. Although I suspect that my reasons for starting this blog are proliferating faster than the main weapons used by the Spanish Inquisition, or a politician's top priorities. See my first post for what I then thought my reasons were. Anyway, I didn't want their first days to be as spectacularly anti-climatic as my own, after all those years of waiting and wanting.

I was positive and upbeat at the pub. There seemed little purpose in deflating any remaining enthusiasm after their first day. I hate the sound of a crest falling.

At the moment I am trying to think of useful advice. So far, it amounts to:

1. Be outgoing and friendly. Make lots of tea for other people. Do not hide away in your Master's room, as I persistently have.

2. Offer to do paperwork for other barristers. They won't see it as a hamfisted bid for their vote, they'll just appreciate it. As long as you don't screw it up, anyway.

3. Try to get on well with the other pupil or pupils. It'll look good for neither of you if there are obvious problems, as well as no doubt being bloody stressful.

4. Get a laptop. It's hard to get much serious work done without one. And don't leave it in sight where some little con can grab it after a con. I doubt you're reading this you little bastard.

5. Don't keep a blog.

Interview

I find myself thinking that it must be over two years ago now since I first sat in these chairs in the reception area of these chambers. About nine months ago I sat in them again, just before I started this blog, waiting for several hours for someone to come and do something about this bloke who had arrived claiming to be the new pupil.

One of the junior clerks walks past and, surprised to see me sitting in the waiting area reading a book, nods and smiles in my direction. The faces of the more seasoned passers-by morph with impressive speed from the same expression of puzzlement to one of affected disinterest. Eye contact is avoided.

The interivew goes well. At least, I think it does. I have prepared some thoughts on why I want to be a barrister, why I want to specialise in this particular area of law, what I have to offer these chambers and why I want to practice from these chambers. This last point has provoked some soul searching, and I find myself wondering who I am trying to convince. This preparation turns out to be redundant, and I am pleasantly surprised not to be patronised by such questions. The three relatively junior members of chambers conducting the interview seem to be willing to assume that I know what I am doing in making this application for tenancy, which is a relief.

I am asked instead about high points and low points. I have to think quickly. There are plenty of low points, but most of these are best avoided. I talk about a case that I felt should have succeeded that has been gnawing away at me since. This was hardly the most heart-rending case with which I've dealt, but for some reason it has become one of several cases that I think about in quiet moments.

The high point that jumps to mind is not a moment in court, in fact. It is the conference I attended with The Master, the head of chambers and a prominent solicitor for the House of Lords case. It was not something I had dwelt on, and I'm not sure what suddenly brought it to the front of my mind at that moment. I said it was the fast flow of ideas and the fact that I was able to contribute something useful, but I suspect it was also the excitement and the warm sense of welcome inferiority that enveloped me as the conference progressed.

At one point at the very end I mention that I have not applied for tenancy elsewhere. As soon as I say it, I realise that this is not a sensible strategy. I don't mean the answer, I mean that I really should have applied elsewhere. I am genuinely ambivalent about whether I want to practice here and now is the time to be applying to other sets.

I can't really remember the rest of it. I've always found that to be the case with my big interviews. The moment I stepped out of my future tutor's room at Oxford I could remember nothing at all about what had just happened.

They called me the next morning to say that I would be recommended 'as someone suitable for Chambers to consider' for tenancy. I get the impression that getting through this screening process is not much of a first step.

Later that day, I fax two tenancy applications to other sets, hoping it isn't too late.

This is it...

...except it isn't, really. I'd be very surprised if The Other Pupil and I don't both get recommended to chambers. And if we do, well, we're both good and we're not really directly in competition as we work in different areas of law. We could both be taken on. With the way the work looks at the moment, I'm probably in a slightly better position, but that's no reflection on her (or me) at all, it's just luck. The most recent tenant did eighteen months of pupillage here and was taken on only six months ago. There is undoubtedly a question about how much junior family work there is in chambers. But I don't do much family work at all, I specialise in other areas, and I've been fairly busy.

I've heard that many family sets are simply not recruiting at the moment. Apparently Coram Chambers, for example, have turned around to their three pupils (paid £20,000 each) and said to them that they are not recruiting this year. I've heard that our chambers are interviewing twelve candidates for third sixes, which suggests there are a lot of 'floaters' out there.

There are a lot of nervous junior family law barristers out there, waiting to see how the legal aid reforms work out.

Am I kidding myself? Trying to convince myself that there's no race here? Ask me again in a month.

If one or both of us are recommended, it goes to a vote. It is a simply majority vote here, but in many chambers there is a two-thirds requirement.

Battlestations!

Late last week The Other Pupil and I were emailed in (more or less) the following terms:

'If you want to apply for tenancy or a third six, send us a CV, covering letter and any references by yesterday. Interviews next week.'

We were both rather taken by surprise. So, I've cobbled together a covering letter over the weekend, re-written it a million times in various styles, ranging from cowering and unworthy to arrogant and overbearing. I finally settled on an unendearing and rather schitzophrenic combination of both these qualities.

I also spent quite a lot of time getting together some solicitor references saying (a) Pupilblogger is the best thing to hit the Bar since alco-pops, (b) I have instructed Pupilblogger a LOT since the Bar was graced with his presence and (c) you would be lucky to have him, and if you do I'll send both you and he LOADS of work.

I now owe a lot of solicitors a lot of beer, and could teach a thing or two to Colin 'The Forger' Blythe from The Great Escape.

I have also very belatedly decided, after a conversation with The Other Pupil's first pupilmaster and the annoyance of the stupidly short notice for making the application here, that it is time to apply for tenancy elsewhere. I'm setting up a meeting with someone at one set and will fax a couple of applications off tomorrow.

The interview is Friday. If I were to get through this, I would be recommended by the tenancy committee to a full AGM of chambers, where a vote would be taken.

Scraps

August and even this first week of September are a VERY quiet time in the legal world, it seems. I am suspicious that there are no fewer problems occurring in the real world. Indeed, with children making nuisances of themselves at home and down at the local shopping mall, rather than being tucked away safely at school, I would have thought we lawyers might be busier than normal.

Not so. The judges and barristers have migrated to warmer climes. I'm not so sure about the solicitors. I think they might all be in Skegness, Blackpool or somewhere similar.

Yet the world has not ended and, despite the efforts of the screws' union, normal folk are going about... normally. Lawyers are leeches and parasites, create work for themselves and are unnecessary? No, surely not!

It's been a good time for The Other Pupil and I, though. While we have on the whole been kicking around chambers an awful lot, we've also picked up all sorts of interesting scraps from other barristers both in chambers and out. I had my first contested non-molestation order in front of magistrates, for example, which was useful experience.

Pupils are recommended not to go away in August and I can see why. There are benefits to being here when others are not.

The diary watchers

In the quiet hours in chambers, particularly around mid-morning when only pupils, clerks and un-instructed barristers pace the corridors, one can sometimes hear the eerie clicking of the Diarywatch Beetle. The sound is similar to that of a computer mouse button being pressed repeatedly, but with added almost inaudible winces and dark mutterings.

‘So-and-so instructed by That Firm? They used to send me their best cases…’

‘How did she get briefed in a juicy case like that?’

And so forth. The clicking often marks the passing of another perhaps once promising legal career.

I recently covered a very juicy case for The Master. It was a high court inter partes (meaning both parties are supposed to show up) application for some disclosure orders, but with the other side very unlikely to show as they had bunked off to another country with the kids. The Master has been very busy of late, and was trying to combine a Court of Appeal hearing with another case he’d been working on for a long time. Nine years, in fact. I read the transcript of his cross examination of the witnesses in that case as preparation for the hearing he wanted me to handle.

He returned another couple of briefs, some of which probably then left chambers. He cleared my one with the solicitors and then went to speak to the clerks.

‘Ooo, the diary watchers aren’t going to like that, sir.’

He put it down in my diary as a legal aid risk, which was true as I had knocked out an advice for public funding the solicitors wanted in case public funding was refused. The Legal Services Commission had been flooded, apparently, and weren’t answering calls. Although how this differs from their normal ‘service’, I’m not sure.

He returned to his room, told me about the exchange and warned me against diary watching myself. Our computer system allows everyone to look at one another’s diaries, although thankfully not the fees attached to cases. There are some in chambers, he told me, who take an unhealthy interest in the diaries of others.

Of course, the first thing I did as soon as he was out of the room was have a look at the Other Pupil’s diary, then those of last year’s pupils. I’ve had idle looks before, but not for some time. I’ve been busy, it hasn’t crossed my mind for a while.

I bumped into one of last years’ pupils half an hour later in a moment of serendipity. ‘How’s things? From you’re diary you’ve been busy,’ she said. Her tone was pleasant, though. Her diary has quietened down over the summer, as have most people’s, but she seems to be getting enough work, as do the others.