Year 3, week 31: crime doesn’t pay
Chambers has just taken on a new clerk which has raised a few of the more traditional eyebrows in chambers. You see, not only does she have both a law degree and a PhD from Oxford but she also has also been called to the Bar. “I was headed straight for the criminal bar and no question about it,” she told a few of us yesterday. “But then I got talking to a few of the clerks at one of the chambers where I was doing a mini-pupillage last year and decided that clerking had much better long term career prospects than did the criminal bar.”
“That’s the understatement of the century,” muttered OldSmoothie. “Glad I got out of it when I did.”
“I know someone who’s been doing it for three years and has so far racked up debts of over forty thousand pounds,” said BusyBody, “and with no prospect of paying them off, she’s being forced to leave the Bar.”
“Only to be replaced by another starry-eyed wannabe Rumpole no doubt,” said OldSmoothie. “You wonder when they’ll learn.” Then he added: “Still, even that’s got to be better than becoming a cabbage in the Crown Prosecution Service.”
“Hey, leave them alone,” said BusyBody. “They have a very hard life and survive under very difficult conditions.”
“Are we still talking about cabbages now or the CPS?” asked TheBusker with a smile.
April 27, 2009
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Tim Kevan · 
3 Comments
Posted in: Uncategorized
3 Responses
I know. It is, quite frankly, depressing. And this is before considering the effect of solicitors exercising higher rights. I’m not joking when I say it keeps me awake at night. The realists know that, unless you have a nice parental background to provide financial support, new barristers should not try to make criminal the focus of their practice.
It would seem these days that Chateau Thames Embankment can only be made with sour grapes.
Surely that’s a DPhil, BabyB?