A Matter for the Jury Read Online Free Page B

level and on the main door of Chambers itself, two floors above. One last name appeared at the end of the list in italics and it was in some ways the most important of all. It was the name of the clerk, Merlin Walters. The barristers’ clerk was t he Bar’s version of the theatrical agent, and his work was absolutely vital to the success of each member of Chambers, however able that member might be. By a long-standing rule of the profession, barristers did not form firms or partnerships. Each barrister was a sole practitioner. In return for a fee of one tenth of each barrister’s earnings, the clerk managed that barrister’s career; assessing his strengths and weaknesses, recommending the kind of legal work most suited to his talents; negotiating fees with the solicitors who instructed the barrister; and receiving the fees on his behalf; all the while doing all he could to attract new solicitors. And now, also, on her behalf; the second new member of Chambers was Harriet Fisk, whose very presence was the harbinger of a coming revolution in the most traditional of professions.
    As the two newest members, Ben and Harriet shared a room. When one had a conference with a solicitor, the other would retire to another room or walk the few yards up Middle Temple Lane to the library. The room was tastefully decorated. Without in any way insisting, Harriet had gradually taken responsibility for the decoration. They had already shared a room together for a year as pupils, and he had long been aware of her flair for bringing a room to life. Now that they were going to share on a longer-term basis, Ben had gladly stood back and allowed her good taste to transform the drab interior they had inherited from Peter Elliot and Roger Horan. The result was not the usual barrister’s room, full of hunting scenes, Punch or Dornier prints, and antique but seriously battered desks. Instead, the walls, painted in a light shade of green, boasted three original landscapes and an elegant gold-framed mirror. The chairs and the single sofa were upholstered in a soft fabric, a soft green one or two shades darker than the walls. The several small tables were mahogany and contemporary, and the room was richly carpeted in a light brown. The desks, which stood in the two corners of the room, diagonally opposite each other, were a rich deep walnut with brass fittings and dark green leather inlaid tops. Today it was Ben who had the conference and Harriet who had taken her papers to the library. Conferences were still a new experience for him. The Bar was the senior branch of the profession, and etiquette demanded that the solicitor, however senior, bring his client to the Chambers of the barrister, however junior, for conferences. As a very junior member of the Bar, Ben had not yet ceased to be self-conscious about this presumption.
    Bernard Wesley’s set was a small one, and thought of itself as an élite group of skilled advocates. Wesley himself, the only QC in Chambers and an intense and introverted man out of court, specialised in complicated commercial work, but also appeared frequently in high-profile divorce cases. Gareth Morgan-Davies, with whom Ben had served his pupillage, a Welshman with a passion for rugby and opera, had a variety of heavy work, both civil and criminal, and was generally believed to be on the verge of taking Silk. Harriet’s pupil-master, Aubrey Smith-Gurney, whose amiable demeanour masked an exceptionally keen legal mind, preferred life out of London at his home in Sussex whenever a busy civil practice permitted, which was increasingly infrequently. Kenneth Gaskell and Anthony Norris were somewhat less senior but were building considerable reputations in divorce and criminal law respectively; though Norris’s abrasive brilliance in court was matched by a marked tendency to alienate people, including members of his own Chambers, because of an almost contemptuous brusqueness, and often downright