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Channel: notabarrister - thoughts from the clerk's room
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The Unwritten Rules of Clerking

I have been extremely fortunate in my career to work for some excellent senior clerks. They have all had their own styles and idiosyncrasies which must in some way have moulded my own brand of...

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The little pink cross

Dvorak’s New World Symphony plays in the background Picture if you can a slip of a junior clerk with one tie to his name and white socks peeking out from marginally below half mast suit trousers. Yes...

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The Diary

There is a mighty presence at the epicentre of the fundamental workings of every clerks’ room. It is a cruel deity which can cause delight and despair in equal measures. It’s fickle twists and turns...

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Lets play master and servant

You might have assumed that the title of this post is something to do with 50 Shades of Grey or one of the many lady porn copies which are advertised at train stations.  I think we have all had enough...

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What is a barristers’ clerk?

It occurred to me that whilst I have described all sorts of details about how barristers’ clerks interact with those around them and some of the trials and tribulations they go through in their working...

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The Court of the Clerks’ Room

The Senior Clerk The senior clerk is the king of all that he¹ surveys. He sits atop the clerking pile and teases and tweaks the slender threads of a myriad complex relationships with clerks,...

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The Cab Rank Rule – What is it good for? (Absolutely nothing?)

Before anyone jumps down my throat there is a question mark at the end of “absolutely nothing”. I am asking a question; does it serve any purpose or is it an ideal which is rarely really honoured. I...

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The best things in life are free, but I want SCT (That’s what I want)

The new Standard Contractual Terms (SCT) are causing a bit of a kerfuffle between barristers and solicitors. What’s that you say, at a time with the legal profession facing unprecedented attacks from...

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The Truth is Out There

Criminal barristers have long discussed the conspiracy theory that the CPS creams off the good and the easy for it’s own in-house counsel and farms out the low end and the messy to Bar.  This is...

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Broken glass. It’s just like glitter, isn’t it?

The furore that surrounded the leaked CPS e-mail which revealed that they were putting costs savings before justice has died down a little. I put forward my own thoughts on this embarrassing revelation...

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How do you become a barristers’ clerk?

One question I am often asked is “how do you become a barristers’ clerk?” not “why” which to my mind would seem a more appropriate question to ask. When I first started clerking the most common career...

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How I became a barristers’ clerk

In my last post I promised to reveal how I became a clerk. Prepare yourself this is not for the faint hearted. Trigger alert – there are some very bad puns and a reference to prog rock in this post....

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That can’t be right I can earn more than that…….

I got a taxi back home from Chambers tonight. The driver asked what I did for a living so I explained I am a barrister’s clerk. What follows is our conversation as best as I can recall it. I saw on the...

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Do barristers need a chambers?

I read an article in Solicitors Journal titled – Do we need barrister’s chambers? The piece is by Adam Makepeace who is the practice manager of Tuckers one of the countries largest criminal firms of...

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You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy – Institute of...

Getting up at 5-00am on a Saturday morning to make my way to Leeds didn’t seem like too much of a problem. I had however forgotten the 3 or 4 large single malts I had decided to sink the night before....

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Christmas eve in the clerks’ room

I wrote this post for the CAM magazine. Please feel free to download it and any other editions that take your fancy www.cam.uk.com The incessant tapping of the rain on the window was about half a beat...

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The joy of dogs

I found myself in a rather embarrassing situation this morning. A situation entirely brought about by my dogs. However before I describe this unusual series of events I ought first to set the stage....

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Becoming a barrister’s clerk

This is one of a series of articles I wrote for Jordan’s Family Law and is reproduced here with their kind permission (the original can be found here) ‘This is a brief,’ he said, indicating the tatty...

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We are family

This is one of a series of articles I wrote for Jordan’s Family Law and is reproduced here with their kind permission. (The original can be found here) ‘Take this brief to Bill, then nip to Trev as...

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My first listing meeting

This is one of a series of articles I wrote for Jordan’s Family Law and is reproduced here with their kind permission. (The original can be found here) ‘Get yer jacket on, you’re off to the chancery...

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