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Today I had a sentence hearing in a really serious case involving a difficult plea in mitigation. It was my first bit of proper advocacy for weeks. It reminded me how much I enjoy the job, the challenge of structuring your arguments to persuade the Judge, the
(2) intellectual rigours of dealing with tricky points of law and the real feeling of satisfaction when you persuade a court that your submission is correct. Time and again I see students on work experience being told in the robing room “don’t come to the criminal bar, it’s
(3) nothing like it used to be and you’ll earn no money”. It always saddens me when I hear that and I was reminded as such today. Yes it can be demanding. Sometimes you will feel you’re underpaid. Other times you will not. You can make a decent living if you work hard and make
(4) the most of the opportunities that come your way. But no other job is quite like it. If you have a general fascination with human behaviour, it is brilliant. If you want a career where you have to think carefully about everything you do, sometimes in a split second,
(5) rather than just work on repeat in the same monotonous tasks, there is certainly that. If you want a job where you will experience cases you will remember for years and which you will never stop learning from it is this one. A job where you will meet all sorts of individuals
(6) from all walks of life. It is a brilliant profession. There are down sides and you will have bad days...as you will in any job, but those are far outweighed by the good. The current crisis has had an impact on everybody and in our job there is no real light at the end of
(7) the tunnel. It saddens me because if trials are delayed for a significant period (which it looks like they might), good practitioners may have to find jobs elsewhere and future barristers may be put off. I just hope that those in charge do their utmost to
(8) find solutions to the current difficulties. It would be such a pity if a significant reduction to the criminal bar both now and in the future was one of the many pieces of collateral damage caused by this pandemic.
