CHAPTER III
BARRISTERS
WAITING FOR SOLICITORS AS CLIENTS—"DEVILLING"—JUNIORS—CONDUCT OF A TRIAL—"TAKING SILK"—BECOMING A K. C.—ACTIVE PRACTICE—THE SMALL NUMBER OF BARRISTERS.
Having been called to the Bar, the question first confronting the young barrister is whether he really intends to practice. He may have read law as an education, meaning to devote himself to literature, to politics or to some other pursuit, or he may have embraced the profession in deference to the wishes of his family and to fill in the time while awaiting the inheritance of property. Supposing him, however, to be one of the minority determined to rise in the profession, he is confronted with formidable obstacles, for he can not look to his friends to furnish him with briefs. He can never be consulted nor retained by the litigants themselves. The only clients he can ever have are solicitors, whose clients, in turn, are the public. He never goes beyond his dingy chambers in the Inns of Court, where, guarded by his clerk, he either wearily waits for solicitors with briefs and fees, or, more likely still, gives it up and goes fishing, shooting or hunting. And this furnishes the market for the alluring placards one sees at the old wig-makers' shops in the Inns of Court: "Name up and letters forwarded for £5 per annum."
The early ambition of the young barrister is to become a "devil" to some junior barrister, who always has recourse to such an understudy, and, if the junior is making over £1,000 a year, he continuously employs the same devil. This term is not applied in a jocular sense, but is the regular and serious appellation of a young barrister who, in wig and gown, thus serves without compensation and without fame—for his name never appears—often for from five to seven years. The devil studies the case, sees the witnesses, looks up the law and generally masters all the details, in order to supply the junior with ammunition.
Before the trial the junior has one or more "conferences" with the solicitor, all paid for at so many guineas; occasionally he even sees the party he is to represent, and, more rarely, an important witness or two. The devil is sometimes present, although his existence is, as a rule, decorously concealed from the solicitor.
If the solicitor, or the litigating party, grows nervous, or hears that the other side has employed more distinguished counsel, the solicitor retains a K. C. as leader. Then a "consultation" ensues at the leader's chambers between the leader, junior, solicitor, and, occasionally, the devil.
At the trial, the junior merely "opens the pleadings" by stating in the fewest possible words, what the action is about—that it is, perhaps, a suit for breach of promise of marriage between Smith and Jones, or to recover upon an insurance policy for a loss by fire—and then resumes his seat, whereupon the leader—the great K. C.—really opens the case, at considerable length and with much more detail and argument than would be good form in an American court. He states his side's contention with particularity, reads documents and correspondence (none of which have to be proved unless their authenticity is disputed—points which the solicitors have long ago threshed out) and he even indicates the position of the other side, while, at the same time, arguing its fallacy. Having done this, he leaves it to the junior to call the witnesses—more often he departs from the court room to begin another case elsewhere, and returns only to cross-examine an important witness on the other side, or to make the closing speech to the jury. In this way a busy leader may have several trials going on at once. The junior then proceeds to examine the witnesses with the help of an occasional whispered suggestion from the solicitor, who is more than ever isolated by the departure of the leader, and the devil is proud when the junior audibly refers to him for some detail.