Monday morning with Alex Williams’ cartoons

This cartoon is by Alex Williams who draws the Queen’s Counsel cartoons for The Times and in numerous books including The Queen’s Counsel Lawyer’s Omnibus. He offers almost all of his cartoons for sale at £120 for originals and £40 for copies and they can be obtained from this email info@qccartoon.com.

December 19, 2016 · Tim Kevan · Comments Closed
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Ushering

PennyweatherJ_Circuit I won’t say what court I was in today. To do so would probably trigger an investigation from the new Ministry of Justice. The reason is simple. One of the judges is having an affair with his usher and most of the barristers know about it. But what’s unusual about this, you might ask? The fact that the barristers also know that the usher in fact insists on deciding all of the cases for the judge. This had led to a feeding frenzy in the waiting room as barristers queue up to book in and try and slip in a few submissions in the process. I didn’t realise this until afterwards unfortunately and was a little perplexed as to why my opponent spent so much time explaining what a hard journey he’d had and how his mother wasn’t very well at the moment and how important this case was to his client. In hindsight, I can now see that the usher was clearly charmed. Following our submissions, the judge asked for five minutes to consider his judgment. The usher showed us out and then returned into the court for the deliberations.

Needless to say, I lost though at least I will know better for next time.

December 14, 2016 · Tim Kevan · 4 Comments
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Ouch

UpTights received a call from a solicitor today. Not just any solicitor but the senior partner at a massive firm which provides her with a lot of work. However, it would be accurate to say that they have never quite seen eye to eye. Legend has it that this has been since she spurned his advances some twenty years ago. Let’s call him OldSoak. UpTights had the phone on loudspeaker and so I heard both sides of the call.

“Hello, OldSoak. How are you.”

“Not bad, UpTights. Not bad. But despite the fact that it’s always a pleasure to hear your dulcet tones, I was actually hoping to speak to OldSmoothie.”

“Oh. I see. Well. Let’s see. I’m not terribly good with this new-fangled phone system, you know. I can give it a try, though.”

She then pressed a few buttons on her phone and got through to OldSmoothie.

“Hello OldSmoothie. I have someone on the phone who puts even you into the shade on the loathsome stakes.”

“I see you’re on as charming form as ever UpTights. Now, who could that be?”

“Well take a wild guess. He’s even older than you, fancies himself even more than you but unlike you, his dearly beloved wife is having an affair with a young man that he’s just made partner in his firm.”

“Ooh. Difficult one indeed. You must be referring to our old friend OldSoak, methinks.”

“Yes, not my favourite person in the world. Pays the bills though, I guess.”

“Well, quite UpTights. Quite. Priorities and all.”

At which point they were both interrupted from their gossiping by the following,

“Hello. Hello. What on earth are you talking about. UpTights? What’s going on?”

It was the voice of OldSoak himself. UpTights had pressed the three way conference call.

Ouch.

December 7, 2016 · Tim Kevan · 9 Comments
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Monday morning with Alex Williams’ cartoons

December 5, 2016 · Tim Kevan · Comments Closed
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CheapSkate

BabyB LPlate improved Had the most annoying solicitor in the world on the phone today, a woman whose name can only be CheapSkate. She’s renowned throughout chambers though her real nickname is somewhat ruder. Anyway, CheapSkate makes a habit of preying on the baby bar and prides herself on not paying for a single advice. The only reason she gets away with it is that the rest of her firm gives chambers a fair amount of paid work and no-one wants to upset the apple cart (or perhaps gravy train might be more accurate). Anyway, today it was my turn,

“Good morning BabyBarista. You couldn’t just spare a couple of minutes to look something up for me could you? Quick freebie?”

If she thought I was that naive she had another thing coming. That same line caused Worrier four hours of work in the library only last week.

“Actually, I’m really busy today but if you want to send the papers in the DX, I’d be happy to look at them in the next couple of days.”

Touché, though she certainly wasn’t going to fall for that little wheeze as she knew full well that once the papers got into the hands of the clerks they’d be on the books and charged appropriately.

“I could email you over the details and then perhaps we could have a chat tomorrow.”

Eventually I relented. It’s an essential part of being a part of this chambers to have a CheapSkate story or two to share and anyway it might bring in work from the rest of her firm. Another of the peculiar Bar Council Alice in Wonderland type rules is that whilst we can’t pay a single penny for cases there’s nothing at all to stop us providing say, a thousand pounds worth of free work. Oh, so long as it’s not explicitly in return for work. Which of course it isn’t. We just do it for the love of pleasing CheapSkate. Course we do.

Not that it’s quite so bad when you’ve got ten mini-pupils beavering away in the library on your behalf.

By the way, as I mentioned yesterday, The Times Online have now set up a group on FaceBook called The Common Law. Do join if you’re already signed up. Let’s make it the voice for lawyers on that most time-wasting of sites. It’s not too common. Honest. Well, it might be slightly common, but, hey… Oh, and my name on there is “babybarista blog” and you’re welcome to add me as a friend if you enjoy reading this blog.

November 30, 2016 · Tim Kevan · 3 Comments
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Like a bride’s nightie

UpTights and OldSmoothie were against each other one more time today. As always, UpTights couldn’t help reacting to OldSmoothie’s jibes and was constantly interrupting him. Eventually OldSmoothie reacted with the following,

“I’m sorry, your Honour, but my learned friend has been up and down more times than a bride’s nightie.”

The judge seemed somewhat distracted by the unfortunate image which OldSmoothie had conjured. Perhaps not realising that he was articulating his thoughts out loud, he said,

“Do you think brides still wear nighties these days?”

This was the last straw for UpTights and she stood up, once again ready to make a final objection. At this, the judge snapped out of his reverie and returned to the proceedings,

“Sit down now Ms UpTights,” he stormed. “Nighties…Naughties…” He stopped, struggling to bring his mind back to the proceedings. “I will have none of any of it in my court.” Then, he seemed to remember where all of this had come from and calmed down, looked at UpTights and finished with,

“Will you please let your opponent finish without jumping up and down.” At which point his eyes glazed over and it was obvious his mind had strayed back once again to nighties.

Oh, and I’ve finally discovered why OldSmoothie always seems to be up against UpTights. Overheard his solicitor after the hearing,

“You’re always the man to do her over OldSmoothie. Works like clockwork every time. I hear she’s on the case and I pass the papers immediately to you. Kind of an Achilles heel for her, I guess. But what really makes it all so beautiful is that the more you do it, the more she hates you and therefore the more she can’t help reacting. Guaranteed result every time.”

November 23, 2016 · Tim Kevan · 3 Comments
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KillingTime

JetSet Went out for a drink last night with a friend from college who is now working for a very posh city solicitors firm. Somewhat gratified to hear that their standards are no higher than the ditch that is personal injury law.

‘It’s easy BabyB. Our target is 2,400 hours a year and I had already hit it by mid-November. You see, the thing is, solicitors measure their time in units of six minutes. So even if a letter, telephone call or simply looking at the papers only takes 10 seconds, you can still bill one unit.’

‘Right…’ I said slowly, thinking that I could see where this was going.

‘Yes. So all you need to do is have ten files on the go at once. Then move from file to file during the day. I tend to manage to bill six minutes for every minute I work on this system. Works out at forty-eight hour days. You don’t need many of them.’

Well, quite. Kind of reminds me of that joke about the lawyer who died aged forty and was standing before Saint Peter at the pearly gates.

‘I’ll sue. I am only forty. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink and I take regular exercise. There’s no way I should be dead.’

That is, until Saint Peter goes off and checks the records and replies,

‘Well, according to your times sheets, you should be a hundred and thirty years old already.’

November 9, 2016 · Tim Kevan · 5 Comments
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CaughtRoom

BabyBarista Had a fraud case this morning. It’s incredible how much of a brass neck some people can have in the face of insurmountable evidence against them. Absolutely playing to type. Deep steady well-spoken voice with a slightly dishevelled kind of ex-military demeanour. Upper-middle class boy done bad. Kicked out of school at sixteen and then a wide boy for the last forty years. Never actually earned a penny. Just conned his way around the world. Couple of bankruptcies. Five marriages. Lots of booze. Now spending his time between his run-down barge in Norfolk and regular trips to Thailand.

Today’s scheme was clearly one of a few which he had on the go. Selling dodgy east European property to a bunch of people he had befriended on a cruise thanks to a certain Colonel Mustard type who he had finagled himself in with early on. Yet despite the fact that my opponent was nailing him in cross-examination, he continued to twist and turn in the wind saying one thing one moment and the complete opposite the next without even flinching. In fact, such was the confidence of the delivery from this experienced conman that I’m sure it left one or two of the jury questioning themselves as to whether they’d in fact missed something.

Yet wherever he turned, my opponent had another question with which to skewer him. Made me think that perhaps the name of the venue should be the “Caught Room”. Which got me thinking about other such names. Maybe the venue for the corporate-type of committee meetings might better be described as the “Bored Room” for obvious reasons. Then a little more surreally, there’s that great legal highway, Gray’s Inn Road surrounded by barristers’ chambers and solicitors’ firms. For some reason I always imagine it as “Grazing Road”, full of all those rich, fat lawyers grazing away on cold hard cash.

November 2, 2016 · Tim Kevan · 2 Comments
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FootInMouthDisease

ClicheClanger Went to a solicitors’ drinks party last night and was all good until I stumbled across the especially boring senior partner of the firm who managed to corner me for a good twenty minutes about how important his firm was to chambers. In the end I just had to escape and made it to the serving area for some fresh air and away from the stench of smug drunken legalese. “If that man over there has the same effect on me as he has on his opponents, I’m sure he could bore them all into settling just to save themselves from having to listen to him again,” I said to the two waitresses who were also clearly taking a sneaky break.
“Er, yes. Well, that’s one way of putting it,” replied one of the waitresses.

Maybe it was the champagne or maybe it was simply because he was so dreadful but I ploughed on with more: “One way of putting it? Boy oh boy, if boring people to death was an Olympic sport he’d be its very own Steve Redgrave.”
“Well, er, that might be going a little far,” said the waitress again.
“A legend in his own time. The undisputed heavyweight, yes definitely heavyweight, champion of the world in boring the socks off anyone in his firing line.”
“Well, I see, er…”
“Anyway, enough of him. I’m BabyBarista. What are your names?”
“Well my name is June Dawson and this here is er, well, it’s er Liz Hatton.”

A little penny started dropping in my mind. Slowly at first. Hatton, Hatton, Hatton. Sounded familiar. Then it all seemed like slow motion. Hatton….The name of the senior partner… “Er…no relation I hope?” I tailed off as I said it, not looking at all hopeful.
“I’m his wife,” and with that she stormed off and she left me standing and fretting as to whether my foot in mouth disease had scuppered chambers’s lucrative line of work with this particular firm of solicitors. As I hovered between coming up with an awkward apology and on the other hand simply letting it lie, it was fear and inertia that got the better of me and I eventually left quietly and most definitely in shame.

Not, it has to be said, my best day so far.

October 26, 2016 · Tim Kevan · 2 Comments
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Assertiveness

BabyB LPlate improved

BusyBody was in chambers the other day. “I’ve been taking advocacy lessons BabyB. It’s great, you’ve got to try it. He’s been teaching me to be more assertive.”

Hmm, that’s like teaching Hannibal Lecter to cook. But it kind of reassured me that if he can make money out of that then really you can make money out of anything, even blagging being a half decent advocate. BusyBody then asserted herself further: “Yes, it’s definitely working BabyB. You’ve got to stand up to the judge. Tell him what you think. You know, they can smell weakness BabyB so you’ve got to be in there and answering back before they get a chance to pin you down. Try it in your next case and see how it goes.”

So, I went off to court in Reading yesterday and thought I’d put BusyBody’s recent advice to me on assertiveness to the test. “Mr BabyBarista. I’ve had a look at the papers and am struggling to understand your case,” said the judge

“Well, Sir, that may indeed be so.”
“Yes, Mr BabyBarista, it is so. Would you like to enlighten me as to what you intend to argue.”
“All in good time, Sir, all in good time.”
“No, Mr BabyBarista, you will do so now or not at all.”
“No I won’t.”
“Yes you will.”
“No I won’t.”
“Mr BabyBarista. Despite all appearances this is not a pantomime. Either you will tell me your case now or I will strike it out and commit you for contempt.”

Which brought to an abrupt end my career in assertiveness. “Er, yes, Sir. Of course, Sir,’ I said, my voice slightly raised and I am ashamed to say, my cheeks feeling flushed. I had started to sound like the Kevin and Perry sketch where they speak to the other’s parents and suddenly put their best goody goody voice on, despite themselves. My opponent looked particularly smug as I backed down and I just hope he doesn’t send sniping remarks back to chambers.

October 19, 2016 · Tim Kevan · Comments Closed
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