How to succeed – don’t be flash

When my friend Robert Roscoe and I were discussing the days when we ran an advocacy course for young solicitors in the 1970s, we decided advocacy was almost as much about what you don’t do as what you do.

Don’t be flash. Too much jewellery can antagonise the bench and your client, who may think they’ve paid too much. I knew a solicitor who had his chauffeur drive his Mercedes rather than his Rolls, which he thought too ostentatious. Don’t try to be first in the list every time. Time-servers in a court quite reasonably expect preference. Above all, don’t be late.

Don’t deliberately upset your opponent or the bench, particularly if you are going to appear regularly. Early in my career, I upset a solicitor, who had annoyed me when he was prosecuting, by making a smart and wholly unnecessary remark. I had the verdict and, instead of being gracious, I turned and said: ‘There, that proves hard work is no substitute for talent.’

It took 20 years before he forgave me. Until then, if I wanted an adjournment, he would oppose it. If my client wanted bail, that would be fought. If I wanted to agree facts – no, I had to prove them. All for being snippy. 

It’s worse to offend a stipe (district judge), particularly if you are found to have fudged.  

One solicitor I knew told Eric Crowther, sitting at the old West London court, that he had a hospital bed arranged for his client. ‘May I see the letter?’ asked Crowther. The solicitor handed over the piece of paper, which said only that the hospital would be happy to see the client with a view to admission. Crowther never forgave him.

Crowther once asked a barrister to take his hands out of his pockets when he addressed him. ‘I prefer not to,’ was the foolish reply. ‘In that case, you can address me at 4.30 this afternoon,’ said Crowther. What the client said went unrecorded. 

David Hopkin at Bow Street let slip: ‘When X is in my court, I always hear his case last, except that is when Y appears, in which case I hear it next to last.’ 

Don’t be either X or Y. Or Z, for that matter.

James Morton is a writer and former criminal defence solicitor