Law and Disorder. Confessions of a Pupil Barrister

By Tim Kevan

Published Jan 2010

The BabyBarista Files.

‘Litigation is like war, BabyBarista. Read this and learn.’

It is BabyBarista’s first day as a pupil barrister in chambers. Never mind his degree in law: it’s his summer working in Starbucks that’s really going to stand him in good stead, since coffee-making seems to be his chief responsibility. He has just one year to make his mark and prove by foul means or fair that, out of the four pupil barristers, he’s the one who deserves to stay on and win the sought-after prize of a tenancy in chambers. It’s sort of like Big Brother, but with little horsehair wigs.

Having been assigned to TheBoss, his oily pupil-master, BabyB retreats to his tiny desk in a dusty corner to consider the competition: TopFirst, a Cambridge graduate with a prize-winning CV and an ego to match; BusyBody, a human whirlwind on a husband hunt; and wide-eyed Worrier; who carries the world on her anxious shoulders.

‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles, ‘ says Sun Tzu, whose book The Art of War is fast becoming BabyB’s bible. Quietly he smiles to himself, and begins to hatch a plan of double-dealing and dirty tricks.

Part Rumpole, part Flashman, crafty and naive by turns both in and out of court, BabyBarista opens a window onto the fascinating and secretive (and frequently absurd) ways of the legal profession. Puncturing pomposity and exposing injustice with subversive wit, this diary of a nobody is a hilarious tour around the modern Bar.