Mojos – remember them? 2p each from Mr Butler’s Tuck Shop in the maths block…
I am so deflated by the grind of back to back to back trials and by the morning to evening rain that has characterised my summer so far that my blogging mojo has got up and gone somewhere sunny for a break. When everything you touch goes part heard it’s really hard to find the head space for blogging.
I’m counting down the days till I am on holiday (nearly there, nearly there), and I too will be following my mojo’s footsteps onto a plane for a bit of sun.
To be fair, there is also not a great deal of interest to write about.
This week I shall be finishing a trial, and sorting out some other writing projects. And then I shall be gone. And when I come back I’ll be raring to go….probly.
In the meantime, send me a postcard with your best blog ideas and maybe I’ll write about it…
‘… not a great deal of interest’? on the transparency front, see eg https://wordpress.com/post/dbfamilylaw.wordpress.com/902 ; and Mostyn J making a case incomprehsible where court documents are not released ‘to make sense of the case’ (per eg Lords Scarman and Bingham, Munby J and Toulson LJ in Court of Appeal).
When serious legal commentary seems elusive…how about some humour? What’s the funniest and most awkward anecdote* from when you were pupil? I should think there must be plenty funny which has happened back from those days.
*which you would have to feel comfortable sharing for general online consumption
Ha, well that’s easy! When, as a pupil I went to the House of Lords with my pupil master who was being led by Cherie Booth QC (Phelps v Hillingdon if I remember correctly) and I had managed the whole hearing without making a t*t of myself, until we all went for lunch in the HoL dining room and I had to ask my pupil master to sub me for my £12 order of fish goujons when my debit card was declined because I’d forgotten to do a bank transfer and had insufficient funds. Obviously not a thing Cherie Booth was likely to have cared about at the time or since, but I was pretty mortified. Also, I now realise on reading it back, not actually that funny either…oh well. Otherwise the most traumatic memory of pupillage I have is of several hearings in the High Court with another member of chambers where his frequent opponent had a rather unnerving habit of jiggling what was probably in fact his keys in his pocket behind his lectern as he made submissions, but which looked rather more um…intimate. Worst in court tic I’ve ever seen!
Personally I now like to imagine that Cherie Booth QC still sometimes relates the anecdote of ‘that pupil whose card got declined once in the HoL dining room’ although I think you might be safe on that front!
Mine so far (my training contact is ongoing) was in an FDAC hearing (so not the most formal backdrop). In my haste to hand up my position statement to a judge I leaned on the table, which transpired to be on wheels, and it duly rolled out of position, much to the consternation of the solicitor to my left who was sharing it with me. I had to simultaneously complete the handing over procedure, reposition the desk, and explain to the judge that the position statement had been filed on time before 11am the previous day and I am very sorry it hadn’t reached Her Honour and I could not account for it. Cringe.
Ah, visions of cuddly Wells Street are flowing into my minds eye as I read that!