The Boy In The Bubble - Mea Culpa

Week 2, Day 3

Now it may be a classic case of "Stockholm Syndrome" but after having had a bit of time to ponder the past few days I have begun to see something in what PM has said (and many thanks to Simon Myerson who has provided some sage words of his own).

I think that what PM saw in me was someone fresh from Oxbridge and Bar School who has lived his life to date in something of a bubble - and someone who, for his own good, needed that bubble to be pricked. In summary I suspect that he saw someone who:

(1) thinks that he is clever;

(2) thinks that this cleverness entitles him to be treated with a certain amount of respect; and

(3) thinks that this cleverness, and the respect to which he believes that he is entitled, give him the right to accord others with fewer qualifications and a "below stairs/back office" role with less respect than he expects to be accorded himself.

Now on (1) he (since I don't come out of this analysis too well I feel more comfortable speaking of a hypothetical pupil in the third person if it is all the same to you!) might well have been correct. He has passed plenty of exams in his time, and passed them with higher marks than most of his fellow examinees. He has survived roastings in one-on-one tutorials with searingly intelligent dons.

Moreover, he is confident that if there is something that he doesn't know, with a bit of hard work he will come to understand it (in my case, I have to add the caveat "as long as it doesn't involve numbers" as the field of mathematics is represented by a "Here be Dragons" entry on my mental cartograph).

This is where PM's point is well made - this pupil knows nothing of the law other than what he has managed to pick up in one year of the CPE, and the playschool that was the ICSL course. He has precisely zero experience of the practice of law, and so in a very real sense he does indeed have very little to add to the wisdom and experience which PM has collected in the course of in excess of a decade of practice. We must all start somewhere, however, and perhaps the manner in which PM appraised me of this fact was a little on the brusque side.

Which brings us to point (2) - having a degree from a respected seat of learning (even a very good degree) doesn't entitle one to anything - a pupil needs to understand that his CV got him the ticket to the dinner party, but he/she needs to sing for his/her supper. We all start with a clean slate and need to prove ourselves. I hope that by pointing out the lack of value which a pupil with an Oxbridge degree represents to him he was simply trying to shake me up and realise that with an attitude like that I am going to impress no-one. I need to soak up every bit of knowledge I can from PM, and learn every trick that he vouchsafes. I will earn respect by showing that I have made the most of the opportunity given to me. In other words, by seeming to behave like a complete sh*t, perhaps he was in fact seeking to give me a fighting chance to right this vessel before it is well and truly sunk.

(3) is the real clincher, I think, which explains the brutality of the message's delivery: I am guessing that Tony might have conveyed his displeasure to PM. I suspect that pupils who are a bit on the grand side are a familiar sight, and that lack of respect shown to those who don't get to wear a wig, but who have decades of experience of working in chambers, and - let's face it - have a very tangible worth to the likes of PM, on whose behalf fee negotiations are conducted, is one of the "cardinal sins" of the pupil.

I just hope that Tony is a forgiving soul (everyone now informs me that the Head Clerk can veto a tenancy in most sets, as they have often been in practice for longer than most of the silks). I hope that my being a laughing stock in the clerks' room will be enough (due to my trouser flapping performance on my first day, my nickname among the boys from the clerks' room inevitably begins with a "w", at least for the time being) to make them feel that I have suffered enough.

PS - Simon - you made a good point. The friend who offered me the advice on not behaving in too bourgeois a fashion with the clerks is indeed third sixing at present........