PI Brief Update

Ushering

I won’t say what court I was in today.  To do so would probably trigger an investigation from the new Ministry of Justice.  The reason is simple.  One of the judges is having an affair with his usher and most of the barristers know about it.  But what’s unusual about this, you might ask?  The fact that the barristers also know that the usher in fact insists on deciding all of the cases for the judge.  This had led to a feeding frenzy in the waiting room as barristers queue up to book in and try and slip in a few submissions in the process.  I didn’t realise this until afterwards unfortunately and was a little perplexed as to why my opponent spent so much time explaining what a hard journey he’d had and how his mother wasn’t very well at the moment and how important this case was to his client.  In hindsight, I can now see that the usher was clearly charmed.  Following our submissions, the judge asked for five minutes to consider his judgment.  The usher showed us out and then returned into the court for the deliberations.

Needless to say, I lost though at least I will know better for next time.

BabyBarista is a fictional account of a junior barrister written by Tim Kevan. You can buy the latest BabyBarista novel, 'Law and Peace' on Amazon. The cartoons are by Alex Williams, author of The Queen's Counsel Lawyer's Omnibus.