No more orange-peeling…today’s barristers’ clerks are polished professionals, says Lucy Trevelyan
“You must nurture, counsel, encourage, reproach and promote every barrister equally and without partiality for as long as you are required and be grateful for the privilege of being allowed to do so. In return you can expect nothing.”
This, according to Andrew Barnes, senior clerk at 6 King’s Bench Walk, is the lot of a modern day barristers’ clerk—and this is the stuff that’s not even in the job description.
A thankless task in some ways, but at least orange-peeling is no longer part of the role, as it famously was for the clerk of former lord chancellor, Lord Irvine. And there are certainly fiscal rewards to be had, with senior clerks reputedly able to earn several hundred thousand pounds a year.
With the advent of new technology, discrimination laws, increasing specialisation among barristers and larger, more competitive chambers, the barristers’ clerk role has moved on, with the stereotypical Victorian barrow-boy image left firmly in the past.
Situations vacant
Clerk posts are no longer handed down from father to son through generations ad infinitum
