The bar is not known for its humility, a characteristic on show at the Bar Council’s anniversary knees-up last week when a former Obiter colleague asked a mildly provocative question about diversity.

Such was the spluttering and harrumphing that ensued, a Martian would have concluded that every judge and QC had Bash Street Comprehensive on their CV. They certainly didn’t the last time we looked.

Keynote speaker Hallett LJ had already given notice that an august throng gathered at the Guildhall was in no mood to indulge vulgar journalists. Times columnist Giles Coren really got it in the neck for once describing lawyers as (inter alia) ‘boss-eyed virgins from Oxford and Cambridge without … wit or imagination’.

Crass and over the top from Coren, certainly. But hardly subversive. The man is a professional controversialist.

Far better to direct your anger at lords chancellor who collude in the denigration of the profession and the asset-stripping of justice (which, to give Hallett her due, she also did).

Topics