In the 1960s, to be assigned legal aid cases it was necessary to write to the court asking to be put on the register of firms willing to undertake this ill-paid work. Looking at the old list for the Bailey, it is interesting to see how many now magic circle firms had their names down.
When I opened my practice, I wrote around and sent a letter to West London – not in the hope that I would be sent any cases (my office was in Holborn) but in case any of my clients who had strayed down the Cromwell Road ended in foreign hands. So I was pleased, if surprised, when I was sent a string of cases. Then, one day I took a call from the clerk’s office. ‘Had I received the cases?’ ‘Yes, thanks.’ ‘Well when you’re next over here pop in and see us.’ Sadly, being naive I didn’t understand the code. I never had another case from them.
It was at West London that I committed two major mistakes in one day. In an indecency case, I asked one question too many, the answer to which did for my client. And then I tried to cozy up to Seymour Collins, said to be one of the more fearsome stipes of the time. ‘This must be one of the most distasteful cases…’ I was cut off in my prime.
‘You don’t come here very often, do you Mr Morton?’ ‘No sir.’ ‘Well, you’ve heard nothing.’
I remember it was Eric Crowther, who later became the stipe there, who prosecuted that morning. In his always entertaining and instructive Advocacy for the Advocate, Crowther tells the story of a pompous young barrister mitigating on a careless driving charge for a doctor. It went something like, ‘Travelling at a moderate speed on a minor road, and approaching a major road, and alas herein lies the reason for the tendering of my advice, which I hope in all the circumstances was proper advice, he failed to appreciate the presence on the major road of another vehicle until just before the moment critique. I hand in his licence which you will find is a virgin.’
All this irritated the normally mild Crowther. And the client paid. ‘You as a doctor will surely appreciate that, as a virgin approaching the moment critique, you must proceed with the utmost caution. £40 please.’
James Morton is a writer and former criminal defence solicitor.
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