An Invitation

I got a pingback from Charon’s blog and went to look. I discovered that my ears should have been burning, although, oddly they weren’t. Bang goes that theory then.

What was said was this (all quotes include exact spelling and punctuation):

I discussed my views last night with other members of Chambers. One person called SM’s blog an as arrogance and always putting the Bar down; another person said (without any prodding from me) SM by posting an attack on Chambers is being defamtory, bringing the Bar into disrepute and shows an extreme lack of judgement. I posted some time ago SM always puts the Bar down this is just another example of it.

Maybe you will get off the student bandwagon of it is everbodies  fault but mine that I can’t get a pupillage and reconsider your stance.

“The debate needs to happen and it will”. Where? On a blog with anonymous posts from anonymous disatisfies students who cant find a pupillage and want to blame everyone but themselves. And where do you think your so called “debate” will end up and what do you think will be the end result of your “debate”? This isn’t a debate – it is a bunch of grumbling students who as I said blame everybody but temselves for their failure. Of interest is that when in your “debate” one student resorts to swearing to which you seek to mimic.

I want to make a number of points clear:

1. The above was not posted on my blog and no one has emailed me with it either. That is inimical to real debate and, to my mind, suggests other motives.
2. An objective look at the Blog – perhaps starting with the post ‘Why I Want to be a Barrister’ (which is the most viewed post on the Blog) will, I think, demonstrate clearly that I love the Bar and being a barrister, and believe that we perform a vital function in a free society. Nor, by the way, do I remotely agree that this is like any other job when sometimes you like it and sometimes you don’t. I regard it as a vocation and I have never – in 23 years -  woken up and thought I didn’t like what I do.
3. It is not putting anything down to give a view which encompasses the good and the bad. If you really love something there is no need to pretend that things are other than they really are.
4. Everyone is entitled to their own view of the value of the Blog and what I post. This is a profession where you have to back your own judgement on a daily basis. There is nothing official about the Blog: I don’t ask what I can say and I don’t seek guidance. If anyone really feels it brings the Bar into disrepute, the usual channels are available to them.
5. I would welcome competition. I get nothing from this – I refuse advertising and commercial link-ups. The Bar has been good to me: a huge number of people at the Bar have helped me throughout my career, and continue to help me when they did not, and do not, have to. This is what I do to honour that behaviour. That there is no competition is just how things are – but criticism about what I write might fairly be looked at in that context.
6. I detect no bandwagon of students complaining. On the contrary: the number of pupillages has gone down; the number of applicants have gone up; the cost has gone up. That formula should logically lead to resentment and frustration. What is noticeable is the extent to which it has not. The complaints voiced here (and elsewhere) are about particular behaviour. They can be – and they deserve to be – treated on their merits, rather than being made the subject of a non-particularised attack aimed at diminishing all of them.
7. That a confident profession wishing to inspire public trust would be prepared to debate its use to society in public is something I take as a given. We are nothing if we are not trusted by our end users and potential end users. This debate merely extends that principle to our own behaviour to aspirants. It is neither a new departure nor a particularly remarkable thing.
8. Where I do depart from regular debate is in permitting anonymity. That, of course, is open to abuse, which is why the post identifying particular Chambers makes it clear that these are subjective views and offers a right of reply (which no one has yet asked for). I take the view that people are more likely to express themselves freely when granted the right to be anonymous. Looking at what has been said by the various contributors it appears that I am correct in that assumption… I rely on the reader to sort the wheat from the chaff.
9. It is important that aspirants do express themselves freely, because the nature of the system under which they formally labour is that they cannot really do so. I believe that the Bar thereby misses important feedback, which would assist it to be more responsive and even fairer than it currently is. The risk of damaged egos is less important. The risk of unfairness and duplicity is offset by the right to reply.
10. Because it is difficult to assess the value of anonymous comment it is entirely conceivable that the Chambers named by particular commentators might simply ignore what has been said. Equally, they might chose to think about whether anything said could be justified. It is up to them.

The invitation referred to in the title is to those who wish me to think about what they say. Unlike student applicants they are in a position where they need not be concerned about what anyone thinks of them: they have already made it. And they have the best interests of the Bar at heart.

I invite them, therefore, to the conclusion that they should email me with their comments about the way in which the profession should treat applicants, the best way to deal with the sort of perceived (or, perish the thought, actual) problems that have been expressed below, and the value to the profession of not discussing these difficulties but simply leaving them to fester. Those emails should, of course, be in the real names of the people who have these concerns. I will publish – uncut – what I receive. Then everyone can judge for themselves.

All barristers are familiar with the issue of whether they will put their name to a particular submission. If they won’t it can be safely assumed that the submission is a poor one.

A Modest Milestone

At about 11pm this blog recorded its 100,000th hit. That includes both sites, so there is some duplication but nevertheless it is a milestone.

Some figures:

• The blog has been up for 22 months
• 84 posts
• 790 comments
• 961 people have clicked on ‘Why I Want to be a Barrister” making it the most popular post overall.
• The “Tenancy and How to Get It Part 2: Advocacy” post attracted the most traffic within 72 hours.
• 344 of you have emailed me asking for help or simply saying thank you. If I have not replied, I apologise. I think I have managed to respond to over 90% of those emails (this is not an invitation).
• 2 institutions have offered to take me over and pay me to write. 4 organisations have offered me money to take advertising. But the main pleasure in doing this has been to say what I like, so the answer has always been no.

Some thank yous:

• I hate the word blawg, but those who practice this secret vice have been extremely supportive.
• The Benchers of my Inn (Middle) have recommended the blog to their students and have been kind enough to invite me to get involved with educational events run by the Inn. I have thoroughly enjoyed it and the peer support has been welcome.
• A number of people teaching the BVC have also been very good about recommending the blog, especially Charon QC and the people in charge at Northumbria.
• Alexander Robson and Georgina Woolfe were nice about the blog in their (helpful) book.

I have written 2 posts I regretted but have taken nothing down, because I think that rewriting history is wrong. Two people commented (fairly) on those posts, and about thirty have been nice about the whole enterprise but, as I would expect, the vast majority of the profession are utterly indifferent to the whole business save for making vaguely approving noises if a mini-pupil mentions the blog. Three barristers have expressed the view that this blog is really most undignified and does nothing for the image of the profession. It’s a free country.

The people for whom the blog is written seem to like it and to find it useful. I hope so. The Bar has, to its great credit, tried hard for at least 60 years to embrace diversity. What we do is important and it makes sense that people from every segment of society can play their part in that project. It helps us all if people feel that the law is something that involves them – not simply something that happens to them. The Bar as a whole – from top to bottom – wants to encourage you and wants you to succeed.

In the picture, the barrister is the not the man on the left. I hope that clears up any confusion.

Interesting Non-Law Blogs

According to Charon QC I am now supposed to recommend 5 non-law blogs. I would not normally do this, but anything that expands the reading of the average law student is worth a try. Having just insulted my audience, let me give the recommendations to which they will now, I am sure, be receptive.

Strangely, I don’t actually spend all that much time looking at blogs, still less non-legal ones. But browsing the web, like anything else, reflects my individual interests. Therefore, for those who are interested in other legal systems I recommend Hirhurim. This is a moderate view of my religion (really) and is interesting for the range of subject matter upon which Jewish Law, or halacha, impacts.

Then there is English Cut. My grandfather was a tailor, as were so many Jewish immigrants to this country. I don’t think I can afford a suit from Mr Mahon, but the site is interesting about a difficult job and how to do it supremely well.

I don’t know if this is a site really, but I collect old watches (the other grandfather was a Jeweller) and this is a consistently interesting collection of exactly that. Don’t buy a Rolex – they’re hugely overrated.

Then there is the world’s greatest cartoon, delivered to my inbox every day and available here. Doonesbury has made me laugh for over 25 years, ever since my flatmate – who had taken the then remarkably adventurous step of spending a year at Georgetown University – introduced me to it.

Finally there is wine. I know, I know – it’s a sterotypical barrister thing. But I do like it and the endless variety, occasional disappointments and the ability to get a bargain is both seductive and reminiscent of life at the Bar. Robert Parker isn’t my thing – scores out of 100 with a minimum of 50 and a preference for blockbuster fruit over interest and subtlety. Jancis Robinson is excellent, but you have to pay. The best free site is Bordoverview. This has every critic’s score for every Bordeaux vintage since 2005. If you find something you like then enter it here and you’ll see if you can afford it – or not. Bordeaux is actually overpriced at the moment, but I haven’t been able to find a similar facility for Italien wine which is very good value. If you know of one, please tell me.

Have a nice weekend.

Career Aids

My attention has been drawn to a competitor site to this one which attempts to provide career advice for aspiring barristers. Law Careers.Net provides a pretty comprehensive guide to the basics, complete with a message from the Chairman of the Bar – so it must be respectable.

I want to be honest about this: the way in which my attention was drawn to the site was by an email from them saying they were reviewing the blog and it might be nice if I sent a little puff the other way. Nothing like saying it like it is. That would have been the end of it, save that when I sent my usual response saying that I will only say what I really think, they replied ‘ok’, which distinguishes them from 99% of people making the same request (also why there are no ads on this site). I think that completes my Nolan disclosure.

The information provided is helpful, but uncritical. The BVC, for example, is covered but there is no hint that the course content and value is debated. I am sure that the providers would argue that this isn’t their remit, and they do say that becoming a barrister is ‘an expensive, high risk project’. The page entitled ‘Bar Practice Areas’ is helpful in terms of what to expect and what to do to make yourself an attractive candidate. It is, of course, far too London-centric with only 3 non-London barristers making an appearance (and one of them belongs to a London based set with a provincial annexe). But that is par for the course. The site is also linked to the BPP law school but doesn’t seem to push it.

Their review of the legal blogging scene is interesting. I’m not sure I do permit my personal life to ‘bleed’ into the blog, although the image is striking. But one of the great things about a blog is that no one has to read it, so you can write what you want to write. When, ocassionally, some of the more conservatively minded of my acquaintances have expressed doubts about content and tone, I have rather taken the view that they can try their own approach and we can measure relative success. No one has yet done so, but the possibility is always there.

My own view is that demonstrating that barristers have a life outside the sub-fusc suit is probably useful as far as the public’s view of the profession is concerned, and that mature, sensible people are capable of disregarding anything which jars on them if the information provided is helpful. To try and please everyone all of the time is dull, and would render the blog so anodyne that reading an Opinion on a bog-standard road traffic accident in which you were not involved would be preferrable. I hope that my pleasure in the job, my dedication to its basic principles and the reputation of the profession and the quite genuine desire to help those whose father was not (as mine was) in a position to assist is obvious to anyone who doesn’t actually want to find fault for some bizarre purpose of their own. If not, then I’m not much of an advocate – in which case I shall wait for the deluge of Very High Cost Cases to come my way.

As far as Law Careers is concerned, the information seems to be reliable and the articles are decently written. You can, I think, use it with confidence. It is not, obviously, remotely as exciting and immediate as this site. That’s enough plug for now.

Pathetic

Geeklawyer wrote a post about Tony Blair. I think it was a little overstated and I don’t agree with it, but that’s the house style and it’s a free country.

Unfortunately, some moronic Blair supporters disagree with that last proposition and have organised a denial of access to his site.

Vigilantism always makes me nauseous, largely because in my experience the self-righteousness that prompts it is about 1/2 micron thick. There are few things more unpleasant than a house burglar feeling all good about pouring his chamber pot over the head of a sex offender on the basis that ‘he deserves it’. The burglar will, of course, be full of remorse for the distress that his actions have caused his victims. Or not.

Anyway can I urge you all to pay Geeklawyer a visit in his squat? Even those of you who don’t read him. That way, it should be possible to convey to those who purport to promote free speech by denying it that hypocrisy doesn’t work. They won’t feel ashamed of themselves because self-righteousness inhibits that as well. But they will be angry which is lots of fun.

Remembrance Day

Ruthieslaw on today. I recommend it.

Exposed

Having just done a podcast with fellow QC Charon (not, however, in my Chambers), I am hyperventilating quietly. As I suspect is the case for most of us, my initial reaction on hearing myself speak is to wonder who that prat is. That was quickly followed by exactly the process I go through as I come out of Court; namely asking myself why I said what I said in the way that I said it and berating myself for not saying other things, whilst simultaneously wondering at my own idiocy (I know how many tenancies there are – 533 – so why did I say I didn’t?). I also counted the number of times I said “uuummm”, but stopped when I started crying.

If that is to give the impression I didn’t enjoy it (surely not – Ed), that would be entirely false. Like most barristers I like the idea of being allowed to pontificate on things. The great American comic Tom Lehrer defines a philospher as someone who enjoys giving advice to people who are happier than he is. If the cap fits…

But do have a listen and see if it helps.