A day in the life of a junior barrister

It has now been six months since I was taken on as a tenant within Chambers. For those not familiar with the Bar route, tenancy is the much-anticipated conclusion of training year, known as pupillage. I did an additional six months of pupillage, because after completing my first pupillage in Crime, I decided to switch practice area to employment.

Tenancy is the point at which you can breathe out a sigh of relief and know that you have a home in your Chambers for as long as you need it, and where you begin to feel that you have real control over your practice.

No two days are the same for me, but below I share with you a day in my life at the junior bar.

I am an early-ish riser. I am up at 6:15am after much snoozing of the alarm. I have a preliminary hearing today, but it is not until this afternoon and so this allows me time to get in my early morning walk. I try to do my well-trodden route as quick as I can for British weather is doing what it does best, as the rain is threatening to fall any minute.

After racing home to shower, I am out the door and en route to Chambers. Taking the bus into Chambers allows me a little reading time. I re-read the papers for my hearing this afternoon. In this hearing, we have to finalise the legal issues in the hearing from the information already provided in the claim forms and formal response and collate them into a single document that both sides agree to. The difficulty is, the Claimant is a litigant in person, and every time we attempt to agree the issues, they provide a significant amount of information that fails to clarify the issues, but instead seeks to raise new ones. There is no attempt to be obstructive here, but unfortunately, as informal as the Employment Tribunal is intended to be, the reality is simply that Tribunal procedure and employment law is riddled with complexity. This comes at a cost to all parties involved, financial and otherwise. I have hope that with the Judge’s guidance we can leave the hearing with an agreed list of issues.

Once in chambers, I pick up my mail, touch base with my clerks and head to the hot desk area. Chambers can be a little quiet some days with people working remotely, and today is one of those days. There is the odd colleague in Chambers that I catch up with, but I then get my head down to finalise my cross-examination preparation for my hearing that is due to start tomorrow.

At lunch, I head out for a few minutes for a change of scenery.

I have brought my homemade lunch with me, but I pick up a tea from Caffè Nero. I’m probably one of the few lawyers who is not reliant on coffee to get me through the day. I just don’t get the hype around coffee. If I’m being honest, I do feel as though I am missing out on something – kind of like when everyone is watching Games of Thrones and having never watched an episode, I had no idea what ‘Winter is coming’ meant.

I still don’t.

I head back into Chambers for my afternoon hearing. It is a telephone hearing. I refer the Judge and Claimant to the helpful draft documents I produced with highlights where a simple clarification of small details could have this wrapped up quite quickly. The Judge makes an admirable attempt to get clarification of the issues from the litigant in person, but unfortunately, it becomes clear that we are not going to get the information we need today as the Judge admits defeat. This is incredibly frustrating, and comes at the financial cost to my client, but unfortunately, this is commonplace in the Employment Tribunal. The parties are left to try to get the issues finalised ourselves.

I take a quick call from my instructing solicitor who has instructed me in a matter next month who wants to see if I feel we really need a reluctant witness’ attendance at the trial. I confirm they won’t offer much more than the witnesses we currently have and are not that central to the issues in any event,  so she can deliver them the good news that they are not required.

It is 3:15pm now and I need to get my cross examination finished. I continue, hopeful I can get this done by 6pm and I can make my appointment with my personal trainer. I don’t really fancy incurring his wrath for my late cancellation, and to have to live in fear of extra reps on the next occasion.

Just when I think making the dreading call to cancel is becoming more likely, my inbox makes the familiar ping at 5:11pm and there is an email from my instructing solicitor notifying me that the final hearing for tomorrow has been postponed by the Tribunal on account of unavailability of Judges. I guess the cross-examination preparation can wait. Quite disappointingly for my client, I expect that wait will be at least another twelve months when we are at risk of memories having faded, employees having moved on to new jobs and no longer being so keen to give evidence for their former employer.

This is the third case that this has happened to in the past month.

The Tribunals are backed up with cases and some are listing final hearings up to two years down the line. The situation has become quite desperate.

I head out of Chambers at 5:35pm, happy that I will make my PT session.

I’ll even be slightly early and should avoid being told I’m pushing that ridiculously heavy sled too slowly up the track and will be running into the next client’s time, whilst pain courses through nearly every muscle in my body

Fitness masochist much? I’ll let you decide.

By Adele Akers, Barrister at St Philips Chambers and Barrister Rep of Birmingham Solicitors’ Group