Audio podcast: Charon Reports – Credit-crunch bites lawyers
I report from a helicopter, returning to The Boat, after interviewing one of legal education’s eccentrics, Dr Strangelove , Director of Training at Muttley Dastardly LLP.
Earlier, I walked down Fleet Street at the head of a small band of very tired barristers (many of whom had not been paid by the law firms which had instructed them in the previous two months of conflict). The wine at lunchtime from various local watering holes had inflamed them. It was not 1381. There was no Watt Tyler… and these people were not peasants in revolt. They were Barristers who had been joined by associates at City law firms worried about their futures. Angry?… yes…and looking for answers.
I did not intend to get caught up in this melee. I just happened to find myself in Fleet Street after interviewing Dr Strangelove about the CERN plan to discover the secrets of the universe.
They were not all young men and women in Fleet Street this afternoon. Some were silks, newly elevated – the realisation that Silk did not always bring immediate financial reward, troubling them
We walked down past The RCJ – unusually quiet – just a few news crews from Channel Z who were behind the curve and who did not appreciate that the legal year had still to start in earnest.
The lawyers were battered by reports in the press that the legal profession was beginning, in some sectors, despite the astonishing revenues of top City law firms, to feel the pinch. I interviewed some of these members of the profession as we walked past Hammicks and down past the Lloyds Law Courts branch where so many legal overdrafts are kept. Their spirit had gone…they were exhausted… but..I understood. Some of them had even cancelled holidays in Tuscany, others shelving plans to buy property in France. Their dreams had been broken by the government crusade against legal aid fees and on the crucible of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the greed and incompetence of bankers who could not resists exposure in sub-prime debt.
I watched as one barrister – he cannot have been more than 45 – collapsed on the pavement. I gave him some Rioja from my water bottle. He told me that he would probably not receive any instructions until the new year.. I did my best for him, but in the end, as in life, I had to move on.
It may well be that the large firms, as Joshua Rozenburg, who appears to be doing pieces for The Evening Standard now, suggests… will grow bigger, while other, smaller firms, will perish in the dry dust of recession. Who knows?… time will tell. The first Monday in October is not far away and soon… our judges will be wearing their new Star Trek inspired robes, the barristers will continue to dress as they did in the Eighteenth Century, complete with horsehair wigs… and the legal year will begin.
This is Charon, reporting from Chancery Lane.
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By way of further doom and gloom, the word on the street is that a (sizeable) number of chambers are in/heading for serious financial trouble. Income down, people struggling to pay rent contributions, overheads up, those who can jump ship jumping.
The Chinese curse again…
Good old 8 king street in manchester (always good for a freebie drinks do) already gone.
Seems to be some consolidation into bigger more law firm like super sets. No 5 style.
Used to be you could instruct your mate round the corner but the edicts from on high are now “we all use this chambers and if they fuck us off then we switch”.
Not the best time for the bar me thinks perhaps time to invest in the old higher rights.
Cobden House though is recruiting pupils.
http://www.cobden.co.uk/pupillages.php