Here at Obiter Towers, we admit to enjoying tales of lawyers’ gaffes and gaucheries; lawyers are only human after all (whatever the Daily Mail says). We were particularly impressed by the honesty of the Bar Council’s new biggest bigwig, Nick Green QC. He confessed to Obiter that on one occasion in his early days, he was ‘so green [pardon the pun] and inexperienced’ that he called the other side’s witnesses by mistake. But it was the account of the first time the commercial silk sat as a recorder that tickled Obiter. ‘It was a burglary down the Holloway Road and I didn’t have the faintest idea of what I was doing,’ he said. Both counsel knew it was his first case and, says Green, ‘they smugly let me know that within the first 10 seconds. They essentially said that providing I did what they told me to, they would get me through it. And they did.’ He recalls that during the trial counsel would glance at each other across the court, then one would shuffle up and say ‘Your honour is just about to do X or Y, aren’t you?’ ‘And I’d think to myself "am I?"’, admitted Green. But he got through the trial, summed up and breathed a sigh of relief. Then counsel exchanged glances again. ‘They looked at each other and I knew I’d done something wrong.’ He’d forgotten to tell the jury to appoint a foreman.

Hey ho, we all make mistakes – and it clearly hasn’t held the new Bar Council chairman up too much. Any other lawyers in confessional mode can send their courtroom clangers to obiter@lawsociety.org.uk.