Profiles

Junior Tenant
Semaab Shaikh
St Paul’s Chambers, Leeds

Life at the junior Bar may lack the passion and intrigue that TV dramas would have you believe but that is not such a bad thing as I don’t think many of us would enjoy our job if it involved the plot lines of Judge John Deed! But life as a barrister at the junior end is anything but dull. There is drama, excitement, and comedy. What follows is a brief insight into life or perhaps I should say my life as a junior tenant outside of London.

First let me tell you a bit about myself. I grew up in Bradford, Yorkshire and went to university in Birmingham. In 2003, I completed my pupillage in London at Cloisters, an Employment and Human Rights set. After pupillage, and not being taken on as a tenant I decided to apply outside London. I was aware that as I had completed my pupillage at a leading set of chambers in London, I was in a more advantageous position than other barristers in the same position. After pupillage, I thought carefully about the areas of law I wanted to practise in and whether I wanted to experience working in another part of the country. Yorkshire being home, it was a natural choice to apply to chambers in Leeds. I had heard from friends and professional acquaintances that the standard of living was better ‘up north’ and that as a junior barrister I would be financially better off. I was also often told that as the Bar was smaller in the North, there would be greater opportunities to be instructed in more complex and challenging cases at an earlier stage in my career in comparison with staying in London.

In May 2004, I joined St Paul’s Chambers in Leeds as a junior tenant. My chambers were aware that I had no previous family law experience but were supportive about my decision to establish a practice in this area. I now practise in family, immigration and employment law, which is essentially how I wanted my practice to be split. When I became a tenant, I had to quickly adapt to the fact that not only was I in a new chambers and a new city but also no longer a pupil but a tenant.

As far as work is concerned, you will know that it may involve cases landing on your desk at the last minute and long hours. The operator at BT who you ring at 1am to book your 5.30am alarm call sometimes sympathises which is nice seeing as there will be no one else you know who is up at that hour who will. There is also a lot of travelling involved but you soon get used to spending many hours on trains, and the national rail enquiries phone number becomes more familiar than your home number. The learning curve is steep and it’s not only in relation to the law and procedure, but the practical side too. Just as quickly as you learn the protocol in care proceedings, you will learn to keep your wig and gown on the seat next to you rather than the overhead rack as this avoids the scenario of getting off the train and realising it’s not in your hand as the train pulls out of the station, and then trying to hurry along the laidback station staff as they phone the next station to rescue your robes and send them back on the next train (yes I speak from experience). You also learn to reject proposals of marriage from your client’s family in a polite manner and without laughing (yes from experience again). More seriously you learn to deal with traumatic situations, with clients who are scared and who are depending on you to try to secure their future.

It’s fair to say that the legal community outside of London is a small community. When I first joined my current chambers, I wasn’t well known and I think this is the main negative aspect of practising outside of London, if you haven’t completed pupillage in the same city, as it takes a bit of time to build up your reputation in a close-knit legal community. So there is an element of being patient and being prepared to market yourself effectively in order to gain more exposure to the local solicitors. From a personal perspective, the other disadvantage for me was that most of my close friends were based in London. If you don’t have family or social ties to an area, it can be difficult to settle in that city. I was fortunate in that I have Yorkshire roots and although I miss my friends in London, we just make sure we see each other regularly for longer rather than for half an hour after work.

Employed Barrister
Patrick Walker
Hammonds

Exhausted – often, excited – regularly, pushed to new limits from time to time, but bored –never! is how I describe my current role. Seven years working as Director for Advocacy for Hammonds solicitors has presented challenges and rewards that I never imagined in twenty years as a self-employed barrister in chambers.

I undertook pupillage in Leeds and with a tenancy at 39 Park Square, developed a general practice in the Crown, County and Magistrates’ Courts. But ‘where there’s muck there’s brass’ and I quickly established a reputation as a knowledgeable and commercially aware property litigator.

Occasionally distracted by windsurfing, shooting, gardening and fatherhood, my experience extended to the Lands Tribunal, the Agricultural Land Tribunal and to Inquiries, including those relating to registration of Town and Village Greens. Commons Registration is a fast growing and important area of work in which the rights of the public to open spaces must be balanced against the rights and needs of landowners and developers. You can be sure that there will be passionate views on each side.

With the arrival of the Access to Justice Act 1999, I became one of the first barristers to take on a high profile role in a firm of solicitors, training and leading a national team of advocates and heading up the property litigation department.

In 2002 I was appointed as a Recorder (part-time Judge) sitting in the County Court. Sitting is demanding and rewarding, and I believe that my experience in Chambers and within a firm of solicitors is invaluable in understanding the whole litigation process.

I believe fervently in the principle of ‘One Bar’ and as a founder member of the Bar Council’s Employed Barristers’ Committee, I have campaigned for the last seven years, for employed barristers to receive equal treatment. Some self-employed barristers continue to regard employed barristers as a threat, even though in practice their real competition comes from colleagues in chambers. Happily such insecurity is diminishing and may disappear altogether if a balance can be maintained between the criminal self-employed bar and the CPS.

How do I see my future? There is no doubt that court litigation as a whole is on the decline, but Property litigation remains very active. Furthermore, mediation is an important and developing area. I qualified as a mediator in 1997 and am CEDR (Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution) and ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) accredited. I regularly mediate high value commercial disputes. Helping to secure agreement between apparently intractable parties is hugely rewarding. Knowing that settlement will enable personal and commercial relationships to survive and even flourish is a bonus.

Do I have any regrets? Absolutely none. I have enjoyed my time in chambers and as an employed barrister. The bar offers unique opportunities in a fascinating range of jobs.

QC
Courtenay Griffiths QC
Garden Court Chambers

From the age of eleven I had dreamed of becoming a criminal barrister. I was born in Jamaica and my family moved to the UK when I was a child. My father, a carpenter, always spoke glowingly of the courtroom exploits of Norman Manley Q.C. who became Jamaica’s first Prime Minister after independence was granted. It was thus from my father that I gained this aspiration. I recall a career teacher once trying to convince me that perhaps I was aiming too high, and that my interest in Criminal Justice might be satisfied by becoming a policeman. That for me, as a black male in the mid-1970’s, was an alarming prospect, although I am sure that many of the police officers I have since cross-examined would wish that I had followed that teacher’s advice.

After I completed pupillage I went to work at the Ken Livingstone-led GLC in the early 1980’s. I then went to work for a year in New York. On my return to private practice in the mid-1980’s I spent much of my time in the north of England, particularly Leeds. This was at a time when there were still not many non-white faces at the Bar. Then the sight of a black man in a white wig often elicited looks of amazement. Times have changed at the Bar, and a high proportion of new entrants to the profession now come from a non-white background. I still do some work around the country and, despite the physical demands of travelling, I still enjoy this aspect of the life of a barrister out on circuit and the camaraderie and friendship it fosters. Indeed it was in robing rooms around the country that I learnt the duties and responsibilities, both professional and ethical, of the job.

I am now joint head of Garden Court Chambers. This is a multi-disciplinary set specialising in Crime, immigration, family, housing and welfare and general civil law. We are one of the biggest sets of chambers in the country. In addition I sit part time in the Crown Court as a Recorder.

My practice is predominantly criminal defence, and I spend much of my time defending in murder cases. As such a large part of my working life is spent at the Central Criminal Court (“The Old Bailey”). This might sound romantic, but behind the romance is a great deal of hard work. Late nights spent working, weekends preparing in chambers that is the true reality of the life of a criminal Silk. In addition there is all the additional work involved in administering a large set of chambers, membership of various committees and teaching advocacy classes for the Inn. For much of the time there is no time for family life. The job is demanding. Success requires huge sacrifices. However, I regard myself as being extremely fortunate. The reward is doing an extremely challenging job, a job in which I am constantly learning. No two cases, or clients are the same. I have no difficulty getting up in the mornings, because I believe I am involved in one of the most exciting professions there is.