I’ve changed my out of office three times in the last couple of weeks.

One change to say I was so busy that I might take some time to respond (this one offended someone who wasn’t as busy and who presumably thought I was just being a show off and rubbing their nose in it)

One change to say I was wearing another hat for a little while and wouldn’t be looking specifically at chambers emails for a bit

One more to politely explain to the people who seem to think that by some alchemy the combination of the words URGENT and INJUSTICE and CORRUPTION or BIAS will magically produce free and instantaneous legal advice based upon a long stream of consciousness email without so much as an eyelash at any papers – that in fact such enquiries need to go via my clerks, and anyway I’m too busy to take on such cases. This latter change was prompted by someone who read the first OOO and took it as a sign that they should simply send a second email, this time sprinkling in a few more of the magic words in, insisting it really was so urgent that it practically required them to ignore my OOO. NB If you do this sort of thing you are, in my book, not a suitable candidate for direct instruction of a barrister in any event because you lack boundaries.

I also had to block a former client for the first time this week, after an unexpected Whatsapp call at 8.30pm.

So, I’m sorry if it offends anyone, but I’m not going to apologise for being busy and I’m doubling down on the OOO for my own sanity.

People who feel entitled to our time and expertise because of how special their case is or how important their issue is invariably never mention payment. That includes genuinely desperate parents who feel they have nowhere else to turn, and it includes professionals who should know better (like the journalist from a major broadcast organisation who cold called for a ‘quick chat’ recently and didn’t seem to understand that barristers don’t and can’t give legal advice about specific cases without a) proper instructions b) seeing some papers c) payment (even after I had spelled out the limitations of what I could say in the course of a cold call). I do work for free, but I am far more likely to be offer to work for free in response to an enquiry that acknowledges an inability to pay, which provides a simple explanation of the problem, and which is presented as a request rather than a demand.

I get a lot of these emails and calls, many of them the result of the limitations on legal aid, or long running proceedings that have exhausted people’s funds – and I do try to respond, to say I’m sorry but I’m already committed on that date, I can’t give legal advice by email or by phone (as applicable) etc… I try to signpost, to give general information when I can, to explain how legal aid works when KCs are involved – and very, very occasionally I accept an instruction. I do all this rather than just letting the clerks deal with it because I know that each person that contacts me is in pain and that they are often confused and alone. But there is a significant rump of enquiries that are not just unsolicited, but which are also entitled, often over-confident in their own assertion of obvious injustice, which disclose a significant history of simply refusing to accept the outcome of a decisions and actions long past, and which are expecting something for free and demanding it now. And who keep on sending more and more emails in the hope I will relent. Or who get cross with me when I politely explain it doesn’t work that way.

To those people: I know you found me on the internet and you think I am just the person to help – the only person who can help (this is what you always say but you often forward me copies of emails you have sent to lots of other people beforehand) – but newsflash: I am not a superhero. I’m a mum with a family, and a job, and with clients who I have commitments to that have deadlines and standards. I don’t have a time machine or magic wand. I’m just one lawyer. And although my job is a vocation for me, it is also the way I pay my mortgage. And if you are unable to respect my boundaries and bombard me with long emails then I will almost certainly not accept you as a direct access client even if I have capacity*.

It sometimes feels as if the more of yourself you give for free (to charities, to committees, to pro bono legal advice and representation), and the harder you work – the more people demand and expect of you. It’s really, really hard to maintain boundaries in this job at the best of times, and a bit of self protection is sometimes essential. An OOO is a pretty flimsy protection, but sometimes its all we have.

Of course barristers are famously always wanging on about how busy they are even if they aren’t, and it feels a bit stroppy and puffed up to even be complaining about all this. But the truth is a lot of us are perpetually struggling to keep up most of the time, because barrister’s diaries are very difficult to keep in balance. And I don’t think we should discourage people from saying ‘Woah. I have a lot on. I’m drawing a line’. Personally, I’ve had a belly full of being grumbled at this month. In court, out of court, by people I know, by people who should know better, by people I have never met, from people I have tried to help and people who just expect me to drop everything and solve their problem. So: take my word for it, there is a good reason for my OOO. And it isn’t always just about your feelings. It’s also about my boundaries.

Top tip: if you don’t like my OOO, you can always stop emailing me.

*(for the avoidance of doubt the cab rank rule doesn’t apply to this sort of work, and in my judgment it only compatible with practice at the bar and the level of service I like to provide for a small proportion of cases / clients. I am selective about direct access clients for my own sake and theirs. The vast majority of the people who contact me would be better served by instructing of a solicitor in the first instance, and if that solicitor then wishes to instruct me the cab rank rule applies and I follow it scrupulously).