Taking cover from legal dramas

IN THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OCCASIONAL SERIES, DAN HAYES PROFILES THE LAW SOCIETY CRICKET CLUB

Skill, patience and the ability to keep a straight bat when the going gets tough - those are qualities that would no doubt serve any lawyer well, but they are of particular value to those happy few who put willow to leather, and vice versa, in the service of the Law Society Cricket Club, which began its season last week with a match against Jesus College, Cambridge.

The club may today only have the one team, but its fixture card has enough highlights to have most cricket enthusiasts reaching for the flannels and the linseed oil.

Richard O'Hagan, a partner at Reading-based Rowberry Morris, is the club's secretary.

He says: 'We play against some of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges, the House of Lords/House of Commons side, the Refreshers [a barristers' team] and we have a very sentimental match against Richmond.

One of the first presidents of the club, Tom Outhwaite, was also president there.'

This year, for the first time, the Law Society cricketers will add an XI from a stately home - Cowley Manor in Gloucestershire - to their list of opponents.

However, do not expect the lord of the manor and the head butler to open the batting or the under-gardener and gamekeeper to provide the pace attack.

Cowley Manor is today a fashionable country house hotel owned by cricket fan whose team is made up of friends and staff members.

Past and present, the Law Society team has included in its ranks several stars both of the sport and the profession.

George Staple QC, formerly head of the Serious Fraud Office and now a consultant with City giant Clifford Chance, was a club member, and at least two judges have picked up a willow and turned over an arm for the cause in recent years.

Current member Tim Taylor was once on the books at Lancashire and he is not alone among today's lawyers who have reached the top level in cricket.

Mr O'Hagan says: 'There are one or two other people in the profession who've played at county level but they've always steadfastly resisted attempts to persuade them to play for us.'

Perhaps one reason for this could be the club's approach to leadership, which is different to the regimes of, say, a Mike Brearley or a Dermot Reeve.

'We don't have a club captain as such,' Mr O'Hagan says.

'We have a different captain for each game.'

Maybe that is to be expected from a team made up of members of the legal profession.

'I think everyone probably likes to be in charge, and is less enthusiastic about being told what to do,' Mr O'Hagan suggests.

One hates to think about the debates that must sometimes take place about the batting order or the field positioning.

But, that apart, do lawyers make good cricketers? Mr O'Hagan thinks they probably do.

'In both cricket and the law, you need to be reasonably patient, to think things through, and to consider your tactics.

It's not one of those sports where you just rush in head first.'

The players will need to be at their most astute on several occasions this season.

When they meet the Lords and Commons, for instance, there will be a new trophy to play for - named after Lord Michael Cox, who in his time was both a lawyer and an MP.

Then, later in the season, they will encounter the politicos again when both sides go on tour to Oporto in Portugal for a triangular tournament with the local club.

But before they go abroad in September, the club will have worked its way through around 15 matches.

Most games are mid-week.

Regularly departing work at midday carrying one's cricket bag might not be the greatest career move in certain firms, but Mr O'Hagan says: 'Most of us are partners in our own firms, and a lot of the younger players have been introduced by the partners with whom they work.'

One question remains, however - and it is something close to the heart of most cricketers, be they regulars at Lord's or occasionals on the village green - what about the teas? 'Middleton Stoney [an Oxfordshire village which provides regular opposition] is generally pretty good,' he says.

'And there is a very filling lunch at the Lords and Commons game.'

However, not all news is good on the tea front.

'The food at Jesus College, Cambridge used to be excellent, with huge slices of cake, but then the college started charging the students a fortune for it and they now just get sandwiches from Sainsbury's.'

And the loss of Cambridge cake is not the only tricky delivery the club has had to fend off in recent years, Mr O'Hagan says.

'We used to receive a grant from the Law Society, but that was cut off last year.

That money financed equipment and pitch hire so we're now on a major recruitment drive to help fill the gap it has left behind.'

For more information, contact Mr O'Hagan, tel: 0118 958 5611.

Dan Hayes is a freelance journalist