Unleash Hell!

Week 4, Day 1

I am grateful to Anonymous for inspiring today's post. In a comment on Tuesday's post he mentioned that he couldn't help feeling from reading the various barristerial (yes I know it's not a word!) blogs that barristers are "silly, venal, petty and just plain ridiculous". We are the "nasty" profession, just as the Tories are the "nasty party". I must say that I have some sympathy with that view, but for the record I set out below my case for the defence.

As counsel for the First Defendant (er, that's me - I join The System as Second Defendant. Due to conflicts rules, The System will need to be separately represented - any volunteers?) I would say that:

(1) First, I haven't actually done anything nasty except for airing thoughts in public that might well be thought unworthy.

In doing so I have not denigrated Numbers - au contraire, I have shown myself in a poor light and elicited considerable sympathy for my numerically gifted colleague (witness Anonymous and Law Minx).

By the same stroke I have risked visiting the opprobrium of the entire blogosphere upon myself for admitting to my own schadenfreude at Numbers' misfortune - and indeed it has come to pass that I have been labelled as "nasty". For my blog is not designed to promote the greater glory of PP but rather in many ways to serve as a confessional.

(2) Second, I might even go as far to say that in voicing my least worthy thoughts and revealing them in all their warty horror I might prick the consciences of the other members of the legal fraternity/sorority and encourage them to tread a nobler path than I. Having stared nastiness direct in its ugly face readers may avoid making the same mistakes as I.

(3) If I describe behaviour of others again I try to do so dispassionately and my descriptions of the behaviour and views of my colleagues/superiors should not be taken to be a justification or endorsement of their actions or the views which they express. Do I think it splendid of PM to tell me that I am good for nothing but making coffee, and for not speaking to me all day? No - but I am trying to make sense of it, and thinking aloud helps me to do so.

(4) Fourth, I submit that the whole pupillage system is geared to encouraging bad behaviour (or at least bad thoughts) in pupils. If I had read law at university I might have studied Roman law and might be able to trace the origins of the pupillage system to the gladiatorial antics of ancient Rome (I didn't, so please forgive the wholesale inaccuracies in this flight of fancy). A system which typically puts 4 pupils in close proximity in direct competition for a single tenancy does have something in common with gladiatorial combat, and chambers events such as chambers' drinks where there is a full audience of most members of chambers add to this sense. Happily for numbers there was no "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" at the end of chambers drinks. No, Numbers was patched up after drinks and will live to fight another battle - the day of reckoning will come in eleven and a half months' time after lots of scrutiny by pupil masters, and assessed work - but the principle is the same.

It is pretty uncivilised, but (not wanting to stray into the territory of counsel for the Second Defendant) we all go on about meritocracy at the bar and losing the Old Boys' Network of funny handshakes and Old Etonian ties - if we weren't put under the microscope in direct competition and under the gaze of the whole of chambers wouldn't the decisions be more likely to be made on the basis of which College someone went to, or whether they were considered to be a "good chap" or not?

I suspect that this may be so, but I do wish that PM wouldn't seem to derive so much pleasure from the spectacle!