Bon Vivant

Changes to the nature of pupillages lead to reminiscences of more colourful times

April 9, 2011: “It’s a very ancient saying, but a true and honest thought, that if you become a teacher, by your pupils you’ll be taught” - Oscar Hammerstein II.

I popped in to the annual Pupillage Fair this year, spurred on by recent rumblings from the Bar Standards Board about the need to keep pupillage awards abreast with the current value of money. Sadly, my impression amongst the publicly funded sets was that this was more of a wake than a party. 

Strategic planning can ease the burden of escalating school and university fees. Elizabeth Davidson considers the financial weaponry on offer

There’s no denying the high cost of bringing up children. The thought of unnecessarily adding school fees sends shivers down backs. The potential tripling of university fees, regardless of when they need to be paid back, is creating yet more anxiety. Given proper planning and preparation, however, it may all be far more affordable than anticipated. 

This summer’s production of Judgment at Nuremberg will put history and budding legal thespians in the spotlight. John Cooper QC meets the director, Sally Knyvette, for the inside story.  

When I walked into the rehearsal room at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, London, I found Sally Knyvette already sitting at the table waiting for the first audition to begin. I was glad that I was early for the interview, because had I been late, I instinctively felt that she would not have been pleased. I was right. “When I am working with people, I expect professionalism and that includes being on time,” she explained. 

William Byfield, Gutteridge Chambers

Hard times spawn a yearning for the luxuries of yesteryears and an unexpected flirtation

14 March 2011: Change and decay in all around I see: O thou who changest not, abide with me! ...

It is often said nowadays that the Bar is not the joy it once was - “fun” is the word actually used but it has a certain frivolous connotation best avoided in works of record such as this.  

William Byfield, Gutteridge Chambers 

This is what we’ve come to ... no longer just having our fees cut to the bone, hitting the good and the bad alike, but being second-guessed by incompetents.

14 February 2011: 

“I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.”  
– Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Act II, Sc II), William Shakespeare 

How many barristers, walking past Temple Church on their way from court to chambers, realise that they are eyeballing one of the most historically and architecturally important medieval buildings in London? 

The Temple Church in London:
History, Architecture, Art
Edited by Robin Griffith-Jones and David Park
ISBN 9781843834984; £30
The Boydell Press (available at Temple Church) 

William Byfield, Gutteridge Chambers
To hell with slashed fees, the BSB, higher taxes, HM Government, and my client in the Claude Allerick trial! In the frozen countryside, there lurks worse.   

15 January 2011:
“… look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.”

 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,
Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle 

The Inner Temple recently put on a rehearsed reading of “Theseus & the Minotaur – What Really Happened”. The playwright, Andrew Caldecott QC, explains the background and the play’s narrator, Nigel Pascoe QC, discusses his experience 

Marina Cantacuzino explains the work of The Forgiveness Project 

One evening back in 2002, local ITV news reported the story of a three-year-old girl who had died in a London hospital after mistakenly being given the wrong drug. As the parents, lawyers and hospital staff emerged from the coroner’s court the interviewer thrust a microphone under the father’s nose and asked him how he felt about the doctor responsible for his daughter’s death. 

Snigdha Nag reviews Made In Dagenham