Junior bar, humbug!

As the boundaries between the two branches of the profession become ever more blurred, criminal defence solicitors are increasingly taking on the role of junior barrister – something that has not escaped the notice of the junior bar. But judging from solicitor Daniel Kersh’s account of that particular role, it is hard to see why anyone would want to. As Kersh, of London firm Shaw Graham Kersh, writes in The London Advocate, the job basically involves doing ‘all the donkey work, including running up and down to the cells to inform the client that the leader is deep in conversation with his opponent, and could not possibly spare the time to tell you what on earth is going on’. The junior is, he points out, subject to the demands of one’s leader. Some require you to be at their ‘beck and call’, while others prefer to do all the work themselves. Once the trial starts, the junior must ensure they never arrive later than the leader, ‘who will expect you to join him for breakfast, butter his toast and plot the examination of witnesses ahead’. Most importantly, like a diligent theatrical understudy nervously awaiting his moment in the limelight, a junior must be prepared to take on the lead role at any moment. Twice recently, poor Kersh reports, he received 7am calls from sickly leaders too poorly to make it into court – and the court’s view was that the show must go on. At the end of the ordeal, there remains the thrilling activity of a page count and note for taxation.

Any junior who manages to get all that lot done without any mishaps may receive a thank you – but only if they are lucky. Obiter suspects that after Kersh’s no-holds-barred account, the junior bar need not be quite so worried about solicitors vying for their jobs.