Masks & Armour - Finding Your Feet

  

It's that time of year when old hands wish the fledglings well and regale them with tales of their own puking terror and early days train wrecks. There are few Supreme Court briefs as anxiously prepared as that first ever trial in the magistrates' court. If you're lucky you'll get an old lag who's been around the block enough times to make sure you don't go completely off piste.

I invariably, in no way jokingly, give the same advice: always, ALWAYS have a pee before going into court. Having to dash out of your own wedding to the loo would be more embarrassing than having to do so from court, but only just.

As the days become weeks and the weeks become months you start to find you don't need to stay up until 2 in the morning prepping an agreed bail variation. Hell, you might even find you start enjoying it. Before you know it you will begin to feel like a proper barrister. Watch out!

Here is where I will give your pristine and immaculate gown a little avuncular tug. Not to give you my top tips for advocacy. I only really have one: no counsel was ever criticised for being too brief. But to give you a kindly warning about what the Bar can do to you if you don't take care.

When your business is other people's business and, in particular, their worst business it takes a toll. It takes a professional toll and it takes a personal toll. Youthful zeal, energy and idealism means that you might not notice this at first. But in time you will and without wishing to foist a world weary cynicism on you it is important not to be taken by surprise when it does.

To succeed healthily at the Bar you will need that flimsy piece of black fabric to armour you like steel when the chips are down. Angry clients and angrier judges have the potential to really knock the stuffing out of you. That's before you have to fend off opponents looking to ambush you in the robing room.

In a similar way when a witness devastates your case responding to that careless question too many or the jury's verdict makes a mockery of your months of toil your face must wear a mask of impassivity. You will need to learn to conceal your thoughts and feelings in court. Some never quite manage this and betray their lack of professionalism in ill temper and churlish gurning that makes plain their contempt for the tribunal or the witness.

Practice at the Criminal Bar is a constant lesson in the subtle differences between empathy and sympathy and, on occasion, the calamitous consequences of confusing the two. If you are completely indifferent to the plight of the defendant or the witness that is not professional reserve it is being a psychopath. Conversely if you make your client's pain your own you will lose objectivity and diminish precisely the distance they need from their advocate.

When you have learned to put on your armour make sure you do not forget to take it off; especially when you go home. There is no full life lived without vulnerability and what confers essential protection in courtroom combat can prove to be an impenetrable barrier in personal relationships. Likewise, do not let your courtroom mask, so much more useful than your wig, become your face.

It is really important to decompress, like divers ascending with care to avoid the bends. Those cutting their teeth with you down the mags will be a lifeline in the years to come, treasure them and nurture those friendships. They 'get it', you may find your family does not.

But most of all enjoy yourself. Without enjoyment the Bar becomes just a job and justice is too important an undertaking for that.