Having escaped from court for today I returned to chambers, which are not a cross between a sixth-form common room and some old boys' club in London, with the ties, and the whiskey, and the rustling of copies of The Times whenever anyone enters the room.
They are however somewhere where we feel we can talk freely, bitch about opponents, judges or our lives in general. There is a lot of laughter too, even if the comedy comes from the darker end of the scale, and is closer to Psychoville/The League of Gentlemen than awful-and-not-a-lot-funny Not Going Out with Lee Mack.
Very little of the time is spent blowing your own trumpet or how you reduced an opponent or witness to tears, or your latest triumph, but about the mistakes we have made because in general they are much, much funnier. And no-one likes a show-off. Plus as a Judge once said to me, mistakes are only mistakes if you don't learn from them. Then they become experience.
I seem to have gained plenty of experience over the years, but I have yet to top the following nose-ender (a question which produces a devastating and unforeseen answer). This was also an example of asking just one question too many: Little Johnny had told the court his uncle had abused him whilst he was watching TV in his uncle's room. Defending Uncle, the exchange with my colleague went as follows:
Counsel: Were there any other TV's in the house?
Johnny: Yes, downstairs in the front living room.
Drawing a line here would have been prudent: The simple point to make to the jury in closing was that Johnny could have watched TV elsewhere, so why go to Uncle's room. He persisted however:
Counsel (triumphantly): Aha, so you could have watched TV elsewhere then?
Johnny: No because I've got MS and I'm not allowed to go down the stairs on my own.
Counsel: Ah
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