Clerklife: All by myself

As each day went by I learned a little more about the world of barristers and clerks. My time was taken up with running around collecting or delivering briefs running errands preparing outgoing post making copious amounts of tea and coffee (I was now adept at using the cafetiere) and the ever so important daily brief search. Because cases often moved from one barrister to another it was vitally important to know where the papers were for each case for the next day. I would therefore need to go through each barrister’s room in order to retrieve all the required papers. If I didn’t find all of the papers there could potentially be big problems later that day and it was therefore a task which could take an inordinate amount of time to complete.

It is a well-known clerking fact that there are certain types of brief which hide from more junior clerks and only reveal themselves when a more senior clerk goes to look for them. The more senior clerk then has ...

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