Name: Katie Lee Chambers: Gatehouse Location: London University: University of Bristol Degree: Law
to work an eight-hour day, which in law firms is a possibility. Equally, if you want to work part time, no one is going to stop you. The flexibility is good because I have two children, so while I still obviously have to make certain commitments in terms of timing, the paperwork is flexible and I can fit it around doing things with them.” Is there a part of the job she doesn’t enjoy? “The occasional opposing counsel whose submissions are very close to the line or unnecessarily obstructive, which wastes the court’s time and your client’s money. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it’s disheartening because I try to play everything with a straight bat and be a good officer of the court. It often results in the judge being cross with both of you, but unfortunately you can’t tell a judge that your learned friend was being a pain in the bum!” Flexibility is key Katie says the biggest challenge facing barristers is “the increasing specialisation of solicitors’ firms. Rather than going to barristers, firms are now more inclined to keep matters – for example, mediation – in house because they can make more money doing it themselves. Traditional work such as pleadings remains the preserve of counsel for the most part, but it’s not uncommon to do the pleadings and then not hear from the solicitors again until trial. Barristers must work more flexibly with solicitors and demonstrate that they’re part of the team, rather than someone who can only be instructed for formal set pieces. The Bar is not like it used to be, when barristers were parachuted in at the last minute – there’s much more teamwork. It’s not just about sitting in chambers, waiting for instructions to come in. Part of the job is about going out and meeting people and building relationships with them, for example, solicitors on big cases to whom you could be seconded for a long time. You need them to trust you and want to use you as their preferred counsel.”
is that someone involved at the bottom has messed up and the matter gets passed up the chain. This can be a serious problem because there’s often a deadline for completion in construction works, so any dispute that causes a delay can cause inconvenience and loss to various parties in the chain. The crux of many cases is working out how long the delay is, what losses this has led to, what caused it and who’s to blame. This is often complicated by six or seven different things going wrong in a project that overlap – calculating delays and losses can be a minefield in such cases.” On your feet Advocacy is of course a key part of the job and representing clients in court draws many barristers to the profession. Katie’s highlight so far is “the first time I won a three-day trial against a barrister seven years more senior than me. The case was on the cusp and could’ve gone either way, but I felt that my advocacy was at its best during that closing argument and I could see the judge was being persuaded by what I was saying, which isn’t something you feel very often, particularly if you’re inclined to be self-critical, which I think a lot of academic people tend to be because it’s a trait that pushes you to be better. At the Bar it’s easy to lack confidence because once you get through pupillage, people stop giving you constructive criticism, as well as praise. As a barrister, you generally only hear people on the other side telling you that your arguments aren’t very good. Judges rarely give praise – although some do – so you tend to live in a bit of a vacuum without an objective sense of whether you’re any good at the job,” she laughs. “It’s very lonely being up on your feet, when you know the solicitor who’s instructed you as their preferred counsel and the client they’ve worked so hard for have put their faith in you to deliver.” If you’re resilient, the rewards come: “There’s a direct return on the hard work you put in. If you work a 15-hour day, your earnings will be different to someone who chooses
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