22nd July 2022
The guest post below by Joanna Hardy-Susskind is a remarkable piece of writing, and it may be one of the best ever UK legal blogposts.
It was published yesterday on the Secret Barrister blog and it is republished here, with the kind permission of both Joanna and SB, so that it can gain the widest possible audience.
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Attrition
In 1999, Baz Luhrmann topped the UK charts with Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen).
We used to play that song on the drive to school. I was 12. My mum drove a banger that we called Bessie. “Come on Bessie” we would cheer as she chugged up the hill. Sometimes Bessie let us down, but no one minded. She did her best. Bessie’s radio had a cassette player. I liked to watch it hungrily eat tapes and spit out a glorious pop sound. My mum played the Sunscreen song on repeat. I remember those days. I remember that song. And, recently, I remembered the words:
“Live in New York City once”, the song advised, “but leave, before it makes you hard”.
School was the local comprehensive. Students were the beneficiaries of textbooks-between- two, dicey Ofsted inspections and our very own Police Liaison Officer. We did our best with what we had. And, by pure chance, it transpired we had something better than wealth: we had luck.
I had the good fortune to be born to hardworking, tremendous parents. They taught me right from wrong and the grey areas in-between. They taught me that precisely nothing in this life was given for free. And that, for some, working twice as hard is required to even make the starting line.
I was determined. And I was lucky. I read. Ferociously. I liked the words. As an adult I sometimes pronounce words incorrectly because I have only read them in books. I occasionally do it in court. Judges look at me quizzically, my expensively educated opponents tilt their heads and I confuse them all by just beaming. “Here I am”, I think silently, “with people like you”.
I remember going with my dad to buy our first family PC. It was magnificent. I typed out the words I had read. I moved them around the page until they flowed. Until they sounded just so. I did not recognise it then, but I know it now – it was advocacy. I memorised syllabuses and mock exam questions and photosynthesis and Pi and Oxbow lakes and the Somme. An A Level was not something my school offered. So I navigated Sixth Form, UCAS, bursary and then scholarship applications. I moved word after word around page after page and I persuaded people. That I knew things. That I could pass exams. That I might have some promise.
I failed often. And, each time, I returned home to my parents and their relentless cheer. “You did your best,” my mum would say. After my Oxford interview, a rejection letter landed on the doormat. I read it and muttered “two of the other candidates went to the same school, the SAME SCHOOL.”
Sometimes, I still mutter it to myself.
But luck, like rage, has a habit of holding out. I got into Law school. Words fell into place there. Sentences and paragraphs and persuasion. I was good at it. But it took everything I had. Loans. Sacrifice. Scholarships. A brutal commute when the money ran out. “It will all be worth it one day love”, my dad would offer on our bleary-eyed 6am car journey to the station. He would drive in his slippers. I would eat cereal in the passenger seat.
To become a barrister then, you had to eat 12 dinners “in hall”. It was a heady mix of Harry Potter and a weird wedding banquet. I did not know any barristers – so I took my mum. We rode cheap off-peak trains, googled which forks to use and giggled in the Ladies’ loo after drinking Port.
In my final interview to become a barrister – with 2 vacancies for 300 candidates – I wore a second-hand suit from eBay. No one noticed. My words tumbled out persuasively. More so, it transpired, than the same old boys from the same old schools. When I got the job, I opened the box containing my barristers’ wig in our lounge. We all stared at it like it was a wild animal.
Off I went. Defending people. People who had less luck, less guidance, fewer words. Many of them hoped that the courts would be fairer to them than life had been.
The words did not prepare me for the fighting. For the people I had to fight for. The terrified 14 year old girl in custody who asked me for a tampon, the shamed 55 year old who had lost his job and stolen, the addicted 21 year old with the sobbing mother, the father concealing a wobbly lip for a son who had not done his best. “Keep a professional detachment” my elders would say and I would nod before going home to lie on my bathroom floor with a rock in my heart. On and on it went. The drivers, the employees, the teachers, the students, the children, the ordinary people who thought court was no place for them until it was. Human story after human story. Stories I recognised. The grey area between right and wrong expanded. And I fought. A first court appearance then paid £35. I would have done it for free if I had not been shouldering a five-figure student debt. The cases got more serious, the money got a little better, but the relentless conveyor belt never let me exhale. I measured my success in precious ‘Thank You’ cards I stored safely in a box.
When luck runs low, I read them.
The finances have never kept pace with the fight. With what is required of me. With what is required of the mass of legally-aided barristers who ultimately have to rely on successful partners, generous families or sheer luck to get by. But, money aside, it is the conditions that deliver the sucker punch. Without a HR department the job takes and takes. There is no yearly appraisal. No occupational health appointment. No intervention. No one to assess the toll. There is a high price to be paid for seeing photos of corpses, for hearing the stories of abused children and for sitting in a windowless cell looking evil in the eye. There are no limits as to how much or how often you can wreck your well-being, your family life, your boundaries. No limit to how many blows the system will strike to your softness. The holidays you will miss, the occasions you will skip, the people you will let down. The thing about words is that they sometimes fail you. When you emerge from a 70-hour week and notice the look in the eyes of the proud parents who propelled you here – but miss you now.
And then, slowly, but to the surprise of absolutely no one, my colleagues – my friends – began to leave. Now, everything runs late. “Counsel will have to burn the midnight oil,” the nice Judge chuckles to the nice jury before I go home to lie on my bathroom floor again. The cases keep coming. The backlog grows. I am increasingly numb to the cruelty of telling broken human beings that the worst thing that ever happened to them will not be resolved for years.
Trial dates creep into 2023. Then, 2024. I edit police interviews for free. I prepare pre- recorded cross-examinations for free. I write sentencing notes for free. I teach new barristers for free. I offer suicide-prevention advice for free. The government issue statements saying everything is fine and I read them over and over trying to work out how they did not realise that justice costs something. That this is all worth something. That some of us gave everything to be here.
And so, it was this week I was reminded of Bessie and the song and those words.
“Live in New York City once, but leave, before it makes you hard”.
Perhaps being a criminal barrister is like living in New York City. Do it once, sure. But maybe I should choose a time to leave. Before it makes me hard.
I find it too heart-breaking to look that decision squarely in the eye. But many have managed it. Perhaps they had no choice. Criminal Bar Association figures show an average decrease in real earnings of 28% since 2006. Our most junior barristers work for less than the minimum wage. We have lost a quarter of specialist barristers in 5 years. 300 walked away last year alone. We miss them. Their talent and company and humour. Their help in shouldering a backlog that now stretches to the horizon.
Though sometimes I feel it, I am not alone. This summer, my (learned) friends took brave and bold action. To make this profession a better, fairer place than when we arrived. For those who choose to remain. For those brave enough to leave. And for those of us, hopelessly in love with this job, who are yet to decide.
But, most importantly, we must make this vital, important job viable for anyone who is about to begin. Regardless of their starting line.
Joanna Hardy-Susskind is a criminal defence barrister.
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What a powerful article. Thanks.
Not really a reply to sean but I cant see how just to leave a comment to Joanna Hardy- Susskind. “Leave, save yourself. You have done your share.Find something that pays better and you can go home and forget about. Watch Movies, take walks, enjoy life.”
Thank you for sharing so beautifully that experience of a public service being relentlessly undermined
Sadly, I doubt anyone in this government that is ideologically obsessed with reducing the size of the state, will be in any way affected, even by such a perfect description of the sacrifice that so many are making to try make to the justice system work
Perhaps it will inspire those who may be able to overturn this Vote Leave government that their efforts are not only worthwhile, but essential for the health of the nation
Brilliant and moving. Thank you.
Beautifully written, and painful to read. It makes me realise that the only reason I’m aware of Joanna, and this Law & Policy blog is because I happen to follow some legal commentators on Twitter. So I’ve heard of these struggles that way.
But it makes me think of all the other vital professions that I don’t follow commentators of, who I imagine have similar, equally painful stories to tell about state neglect in the face of political promises and lies.
Nurses I imagine. Teachers. They’re the obvious ones. But I know nothing of refuse collectors. Or Prison officers. Social care workers. Librarians. Hospital cleaners. Medical researchers. Public Transport workers. Numerous wings of the Civil Service…
It just takes one story from someone working in a sector you never even knew existed to realise “That’s a vital service, and it’s being neglected” And it’s happening everywhere.
And yet this Prime Ministerial election will be won off the back of promised immediate, or deferred tax cuts. Because what benefit is there to anyone from paying taxes?
This. It’s not taking anything away from this genuinely powerful testimony, it’s the horrifying realisation that this is not the exception, and, worse, that these stories are everywhere. This is normal. And we should be ashamed.
I am ashamed. Ashamed of my country, my government, my soo-to-be prime minister, my soon-to-be ex-prime minister. Yet why should I be? I didn’t vote for them. I didn’t vote for Brexit. I don’t hold immigrants or people of colour or people who are different to me in contempt. As a post war child I worked hard to benefit from the new found right to secondary education and then university. I brought my children up to work hard and respect others. I rejoiced in the desire to cooperate for peace and well-being. Then came Thatcher, ‘greed is good’, ‘there’s no such thing as society’ and the cult of the individual. It’s been downhill ever since.
Your comment is as eloquent as the original article. I’m with you
Wonderfully written. This passage brought a tear to the eye:
“Keep a professional detachment” my elders would say and I would nod before going home to lie on my bathroom floor with a rock in my heart.
Best of luck to you and your colleagues with this fight. We cannot afford to lose more good people from the criminal justice system but sadly the system is driving them away.
Jhs,
I want to thank you for your honesty courage and hope reporting truth to power. Your presence is the force holding us together. Thank you and your family for all you have given and continue to provide. I especially like the words you’ve chosen. Thank you for sharing your truth.
What a wonderful very moving post, thank you to Joanna for writing it and to you for giving it the richly deserved wider visibility.
It is an excellent piece of writing and deserves greater circulation thank you.
See also Mick Lynch being interviewed anytime, anywhere most recently on Newscast.
Well, that was a great piece of writing. She certainly can persuade with words. Thank you very much for sharing it David.
No doubt this will spur our highly competent, serious and focused government on to even greater efforts to fix these problems in our criminal justice system.
I’m so glad that attention to this article is being widely shared. As well as being beautifully written, it starkly depicts how much public service provision has been diminished in the UK, largely because of government ideology. Not just the legal professions, but also health and education, the police. Sadly, I have little confidence that sufficient voters either care or understand.
I have been following Joanna Hardy Susskind on twitter for a while, pointed in her direction by “The Secret Barrister”. Until I started reading their posts, I had little ideawhat life could be like for a barrister; had always presumed lawyers were well paid for their learning and efforts. I’m grateful for the education. Thank you.
This was worth reading. Someone like you, Joanna, changed the course of the life of someone like me about 45 years ago, with your words, and perhaps because we came from similar streets. Please keep at it for as long as you can, because the people like you (and, I hope, me) matter, if only because we keep reminding everyone that there is a morality and ethic in the mix that really matter.
An important story beautifully written..
Utterly brilliant
Absolutely brilliant!
Thank you DAG for sharing this superbly witten and moving essay. Should be read in particular by anyone whose view of the Bar comes from television drama.
Wow! That is a powerful post by Joanna. What a shameful situation: she and her colleagues deserve so much better.
Now that is advocacy.
If you cut, and cut, and cut, and cut, … what are you left with? A hollowed-out structure, like a Sierpinski gasket, that resembles the original shape, but collapses under its own weight.
What is the point of the tough policy statements, and the draconian legislation, and the severe sentencing guidelines, and the politicians cosplaying as police, if we don’t have enough real police, and criminal courts, and judges and barristers, and prisons and prison officers, and education and mental health services, and probation services, and all the other moving parts that make a criminal justice system actually works to deliver deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, retribution, and restitution. To actually do justice, by catching the guilty, and acquitting the innocent. For too long – at least 12 years – we have been wishing for ends without supplying the means.
Things cannot go on as they are.
This actually brought tears to my eyes. So powerful, so heartfelt and, because written by a skilled advocate, so lucid and clear.
Thank you Simon. I almost wrote it in a single breath so you’ll have to forgive the pace of it (!!) Thanks for your engagement and kind words. JHS.
A compelling piece of writing – I just wish it could reach and move the places and people needed to effect change before it’s too late.
Thank you. Thank you to Joanna Hardy Susskind for writing this, to the Secret Barrister and to yourself for making it available. Above all, thank you to the barristers, and those working alongside them, not to protect the interests of insurance companies and multi-nationals but to help the weakest in our society gain justice (which will not always, of course, equate to acquittal).
As someone sometimes described as our only advocate once said: “Inasmuch as you do it for the least of your brethren, you do it for me”.
Unbearably moving. It should make us all incandescently angry with the fools that govern us and who know the cost of everything but the value of nothing.
Even a narrow-minded obsession with costs would be more forgiveable than the behaviour on display. Take the current Home Secretary’s various schemes for handling refugees: all cruel, all likely to be illegal, and all without a glimpse of a cost-benefit justification beyond “trust your wise rulers”. When a half-million-pound flight is to be mounted to move a single inoffensive individual at the same time that the justice system is being robbed of its ability to provide justice, then we’re witnessing something more evil than foolish parsimony.
Joanna – You certainly know how move words around the page until they flow. Beautifully written. Thanks to you, the SB and DAG for demonstrating so clearly how the provision of vital legal services is diminishing, and pushing the fight to reverse that trend
Thank you David. Agree re SB and DAG – both generous with their well-deserved platforms.
There is no part of our society which has been left untouched by the lessez-faire, small government, tax cutting smug middle classness of the past 15 years and as a simple punter it is almost as hard not to become inured to the story told by Joanna, that goes with all the other stories we are told by many more people of equal commitment, belief, and honour. I find it hardest to cope with the daily little lies from the professional rebutters – record investment in this service, best ever performance from that service, and so on and on and on. But, sod it, let’s just remember the Amazon starts as a few raindrops. We can make a difference and there is a purpose and a cause worth fighting. In the meantime, little gestures and personal kindnesses can hopefully bolster the efforts of those who try. Thank you Joanna, you make a difference.
To pursue your metaphor to an uncomfortable conclusion, the Amazon starts as a few raindrops dripping off one tree, along with several trillion raindrops dripping off several million other trees; but some bastard in a fancy official mansion is setting one lot of desperate people against another lot who have little but don’t ask for much; and the forest is going up in flames.
Come to think of it, that is both a metaphor and the realiy of today’s news. The metaphor has, alas, innumerable applications. I’ll leave it to others to come up with their own.
In the immediate instance to which the blog-post and your comment refer, the avenues for effective mass action are being deliberately closed off.
An incredibly powerful, moving and anger-inducing post. How can we expect our criminal justice system to survive when the people on whom it relies are facing such unbearable strain?
Joanna, thank you for your eloquence. David, thank you for providing a platform on your blog for this really important post.
Thank you so much Nicholas.
Me too
Read it several times yesterday and again today; thank you so much for sharing this DAG, it really does need the widest possible audience.
JH-S – you are something even more dangerous than an advocate; you are a poet.
That’s such a kind thing to say. I’m blown away by the response. Thank you for your engagement with it. JHS
I have a friend, who’s ex-husband is a barrister. She always said that if I was interested in something in Law, then that would be the best way ahead (money, career prospects, etc etc).
After reading Joanna’s piece, I’m really glad I’m interlectually lazy. Commercial transport operations are much less effort (despite the longish hours and hassles from delivery points that don’t get that “if it’s not moving, it ain’t earning” etc).
Hence still amazing to read of someone else’s world like this.
Thank you both David for the blog as a whole and Joanna for the specifics above. Very much appreciated
Joanna Hardy-Susskind. that was eloquent, articulate, powerful, and moving.
Thank you so much for reading my piece Alison. And to DAG for kindly hosting it.
And re life as a GP, see https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/feb/22/my-30-years-as-gp-profession-horribly-eroded-clare-gerada
A beautifully written indictment of a broken system.
Thank you for reading this piece and for such a nice comment, John.
JHS
Eloquent etc but points out that using baby barristers to learn their trade on the lower orders is a throwback to the days of noblesse oblige and non poor law grads.
So, either a big shortage of barristers coming down the line or a need for funding or go over to a public defender model.
Wow I never knew. thank you for enlightening me.
Magnificently crafted piece on the dreadfullness of a party that puts profit before people. What a mess this country has become, what a shambles the justice system is under the so called party of “law and order”.
Thank you Joanna for your and your colleagues service under the most trying of times for the the poorest of recompense.
Beautiful and powerful post. Incidentally, the situation is the same in mental health services where my wife works. It does wreck your family life. Only those who aspire to the top, bureaucratic jobs stay. The others are leaving in droves, unable to cope with the workload and the desperation at the inadequacy of resources.
Thanks for sharing it, hadn’t seen it elsewhere and it is, as you say, a fine piece of writing.
I’ve now read this twice, first on SB and now on on DAG. Both times it made my heart soar and my eyes tear up. Thank you for such an inspiring and revealing story about the aspiration and desperation within our creaking legal system as a result of more than a decade of government austerity and mindless Lord Chancellors and the cowed justice department. Thank you.
Thank you, JHS and DAG. “I shall not cease from Mental Fight/ Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand…”
Toomas Karmo,
writing as Estonian national
in Tõravere Hamlet, Tartumaa County
For anyone who has read, “The Secret Barrister”, the picture painted by JHS will be depressingly familiar. Perhaps even more sobering is the realisation that the malaise she describes is not restricted to the courts system.
The (frightening/sobering/challenging) thing is that this is not a narrow or isolated set of experiences.
It is no coincidence that after the cuts-cuts-cuts to the NHS, the removal of ward matrons and the out-sourcing of hospital cleaning to generic cleaning companies that we saw the emergence of our first hospital “super-bugs”.
It is no coincidence that after the original system of exam grading (take all results, map a bell curve and the top 12% of scores are awarded an “A”; etc.) was replaced with de-regulation and new grading schemes and “League Tables” that education has become a race-to-the-bottom, all the while class sizes stretch to breaking point. Or that we see reports of “soaring” class sizes more frequently.
It is no coincidence that in 2019 the UK’s armed forces stood at 149,000 personnel, down from 334,000 in 1985 (to comfortably less than half).
It is also no coincidence that today we have the worst “pay gap” between lowest-paid workers and senior managers than at any time since the age of the Robber Barons, perhaps not even then.
It is no coincidence that in the annual rounds of magical sleight-of-hand – sorry, the UK budget – the Chancellor manages to give with one hand and take with another that leaves average citizens worse off whilst rewarding the to 5% in the country.
Or that during the Covid-19 Pandemic, we saw the net worth of the wealthiest sky-rocket. For example, in the 12 months from the start of the outbreak, Jeff Bezos (Amazon CEO) added more than $70 billion to his net worth. In the United States, Amazon workers earned a 99-cents-an-hour pay rise. In each hour of 2020, Bezos’ net worth grew by £11,700,000.
So why is this happening?
This, I am sorry to say, is what happens as a result of corruption in politics. This is what happens when influencers and “lobbyists” are allowed access to the corridors of power. This is what happens when elected officials with relatively small income and net worth compared with billionaires, are exposed to “influence”.
Yes, but why is this happening?
It is happening because of the slow but inexorable march towards privatised government, towards small government and the inefficiencies and corruption that allows.
Yes yes, but why is this happening?
It is happening because the funding and provision of adequate services, of a robust legal system in rude health, which is what JHS so passionately and eloquently argues for, would ordinarily be funded by direct taxation on income. Which means that the wealthiest in society would have to pay a lot more tax to cover the costs. Since the wealthiest don’t want to pay, they have their lobbyists devise glib-sounding arguments – like privatisation, competition in the NHS, school vouchers – the list goes on.
But what each of these supposed improvements have in common is that they slowly and incrementally shift the tax burden away from the wealthiest and on to those less able to pay. For the most part it’s stealthy, too… The headline says “Income Tax Cut!”. The by-line explains it is paid for by increases in NI and/or VaT.
Anyone remember the “Poll Tax”? It meant that working families paid more while the wealthiest paid less. When mass civil disobedience meant that collection rates dropped, it was subsidised by an increase in VaT from 15% to 17.5. Things didn’t get better, so it was replaced by “Council Tax” – resulting in everyone paying “a bit more” than they had previously. Yet VaT remained at 17.5%. Funny, that. Except, of course, that VaT has a proportionately larger impact on those who spend a larger proportion of their earnings – the lower paid. It doesn’t impact high earners or the wealthiest.
So yes. Everything that JHS writes is shockingly, tragically true. But it has been going on all around us, in one form or another, since the Winter of Discontent.
If the government had attempted to introduce the changes en mass – even a little faster – there would have been a British equivalent to July 14th (Bastille Day). As it is, the powers behind the throne have learned that incremental change is more and are tightening the screws sufficiently slowly and in “localised” ways that most people don’t notice.
All horrendously true but also aided by a gradual, popular obsession with self and self-image, self-indulgence rather than responsibility, opinion rather than fact, sound-bites rather than in-depth analysis, demands rather than duty. Yes, I have allowed myself to succumb to some of this. No, I do not want to return to the 1950s. Yes, I think much tolerance, openness and hope have grown since the 1950s (and before). But it’s not surprising we get a me-me-me government alongside a me-me-me culture, which slide into one another, and all over one another like out-of-control slugs.
I definitely agree with you that the trend away from in-depth analysis and towards sound-bites is responsible for the general erosion of citizen engagement across the country.
With regards to the obsession with self, self-image and self-indulgence have an impact, here I agree too, but with a different perspective. Those who prefer to work behind the scenes (the billionaires, their lobbyists and so on) don’t like being seen to work publicly. So the immediate distraction provided by popular culture – the Twitter/Facebook/Whatever obsession is perfect for this – the equivalent of the magician’s misdirection while the real trick is going on someplace else.
I also think, as typified by Jo Moore and her “Good Day to Bury Bad News” suggestion (on 9/11 as the world watched in horror as airliners crashed in to the World Trade Centre in New York), that those who would do things like influence a government are in fact *delighted* by the endless 24/7 assault of all this “popular culture white noise”.
For proof, look at Donald Trump – who better understood the 24-hour news cycle than any predecessor. Who on the day that news broke the Mike Flynn had been holding undisclosed conversations with the Russian Ambassador, simply made up on the spot the fiction that Obama had ordered Trump Tower in New York to be “bugged”… And the Mainstream Media reported it because it was sensational. Nobody bothered to stop and ask him for his evidence. Focus was effortlessly redirected from the Mike Flynn scandal to something of complete fiction.
But if we step back and look at the “big picture”, we see that our government is collecting more in tax terms, both in actual Pounds Sterling and in percentage terms than at almost any other time, yet the funding for our public services is already at an all-time low and dropping steadily.
Why is this? Because the government is fixated on “private sector” procurement and “buying in” the expertise it should have in-house. Because the market regulators the government claims to have are paper tigers, under-staffed, under-budgeted, completely ineffective, their best talent hired away by those they are supposed to regulate.
Everything JHS wrote is true.
But it’s important to see the big picture: this isn’t the government picking on the Justice system for some spiteful reason… it is the government systematically dismantling all the mechanisms by which private individuals can stand up to the rich, the powerful, big employers, big service providers and even their own government.
It would be a stretch to claim this was done with malice aforethought, but cumulatively it has such a chilling effect on society. And certainly the government is getting increasingly adept at spotting opportunities and taking them.
And your “different perspective” amply illustrates that the rich and powerful are also, probably more so, obsessed with the “greed is good” philosophy mentioned by Ingrid Rock.
“Yes yes, but why is this happening?”
Perhaps because the Economic Incentives greatly outweigh the Social and Moral Incentives for those in power
Although that doesn’t explain why we keep voting for them
Because “we” dislike “funny foreigners,” are short-termists, are manipulated by the media and social media, had an appalling opposition leader, have a crap voting system, are badly educated about politics and law, and are neurotic about what “we” think the EU is, long for a strong hand in lieu of thinking, and bask in believing bluster.
Your observation regarding short-termism reminded me of the “speech” given by Nix (Hugh Laurie) in the concluding moments of “Tomorrowland”:-
“Let’s imagine… if you glimpsed the future, you were frightened by what you saw, what would you do with that information? You would go to the politicians, captains of industry? And how would you convince them? Data? Facts? Good luck! The only facts they won’t challenge are the ones that keep the wheels greased and the dollars rolling in.
But what if… what if there was a way of skipping the middle man and putting the critical news directly into everyone’s head? The probability of wide-spread annihilation kept going up. The only way to stop it was to show it, to scare people straight. Because what reasonable human being wouldn’t be galvanized by the potential destruction of everything they’ve ever known or loved? To save civilization, I would show its collapse. How do you think this vision was received? How do you think people responded to the prospect of imminent doom? They gobbled it up like a chocolate eclair! They didn’t fear their demise, they re-packaged it. It could be enjoyed as video-games, as TV shows, books, movies, the entire world wholeheartedly embraced the apocalypse and sprinting towards it with gleeful abandon.
Meanwhile your earth was crumbling all around you. You’ve got simultaneous epidemics of obesity and starvation. Explain that one! Bees and butterflies start to disappear, the glaciers melt, algae blooms. All around you the coal mine canaries are dropping dead and you won’t take the hint! In every moment there’s the possibility of a better future, but you people won’t believe it. And because you won’t believe it you won’t do what is necessary to make it a reality. They dwell on this terrible future and you resign yourselves to it for one reason, because that future doesn’t ask anything of you today.
So yes, we saw the iceberg and warned the Titanic. But you all just steered for it anyway full steam ahead. Why? Because you want to sink! You gave up!”
“Because that future doesn’t ask anything of you today…”
Prophetic.
But going back to your comment about “short-termists”… are you thinking in terms of citizens as short-termists (e.g. debt-fuelled shopping binges because “I want it now!”) or more in terms of government as short-termists (e.g. enacting policies and principles that serve mainly to get them re-elected, as opposed to take strategic, long-term decisions for the nation)?
I see both everywhere I look… What concerns me is that the nation’s obsession with the former means their attention is distracted from situations where a handful of cynical politicians do the latter.
I haven’t seen Tomorrowland but great speech!
I was thinking of governments but, yes, citizens too. I have in fact been wondering about what I meant by “short-termism” and whether it has always existed. Certainly what has gravely accelerated it is the Internet but there again is that inevitably such a bad thing? We know something (many things) is wrong, and you’re right to highlight the manipulation behind the scenes, but hasn’t that always been the case? Hamlet was based on the reality of scheming at high level and Lear was undone by moral blindness because he wanted the right answer NOW. This Government is certainly worse than ever. But who is to blame? MPs are only citizens too. I think you’re probably right that people like the Koch brothers are running the show. But how about the Well-being of Future Generations (Welsh) Act 2015? I haven’t studied this but, if one government can come up with the idea, so can another!
Bravo and as I said much earlier we need more of Mike Lynch speaking truth to power.
Agreed, and I think Mr Lynch understands macroeconomics better than Sproggit.
That tree at the corner of the road where you live understands macro-economics better than I do…
One critical factor not mentioned in all this good reasoning is that the political party in power expects the purpose of power to be to enrich the party. Privatisation is not and end in itself, it is the means by which treasury funds can be directed to those who donate most generously to party funds.
It is this which explains why Tory Tony refused to reverse privatisation.
The ever present political assumption is that the nation works for the party of government, rather than the way it should be.
First charming, then moving, then a shredding of the government’s position with the cold hard steel of reality.
Wonderfully compelling.
An amazing piece.
Thank you for wanting to go into the Law.
Thank you for facing every challenge to persevere into the Law.
Thank you, on behalf of those you have helped, for your advocacy.
You are right: you and your colleagues deserve better. I hope you get it, because all of us depend on you.
Absolutely endorse this and other people’s thanks.
Wholly agree, nothing to add.
Dear Joanna,
I’d like to add to your ‘Thank you’ notes – Thank you that you are doing this job, which is absolutely vital for a functioning justice system. Thank you for doing your best to help clients who need your help in difficult situations.
And – thank you that you can use words so persuasively, that you can explain the current situation for people who do not work in that area.
Thank you!
C.
Thank you for this article and thank you for the work you and those like you, do.
I wish you all the best in the future.
What a sad but wonderfully written piece.
Well done, Joanna. Now let us have an equivalent piece from a doctor or other public health service worker who is still trying to fulfil the vocation they dreamed of.
Thank you Joanna for this very powerful post. This so closely mirrors my own experience at the criminal Bar, which I left 15 years ago, and I’m sure things have got worse since. The combination of intense stress, traumatic subject matter, long hours and ridiculously low pay was too much for my mental and physical health and I left to join the employed Bar, which continues to be a much happier experience. I think it’s the ones who stay who are the brave ones.
Thank you, JHS, and all who have commented.
Dear Joanna
You are not alone. In Australia we have the same put upon legal aid defence barristers as you.
But are they not the best company you and I can imagine?
Graham Thomas
My dad was a lorry driver, my mum ‘just’ a housewife. First (only!) member of my family to make it to Uni, I too sometimes mispronounce fancy words I know only from books. I wanted to be a lawyer, saw all the stuff about dinners, didn’t, became a journalist first, and then a cop. Saw first hand what it takes in the courts, the winning, the losing, Good barristers. Bad ones. The justice. The injustice. I hope you find the courage to stay, the law has to be for more than posh boys and girls. But I will totally understand if you don’t.
Your story will resonate with so many people. It’s a sad reality but the advice of our parents, ‘to work hard, and always go the extra mile’ doesn’t mean as much as who you know and increasingly the circumstances of your parents.
I am on my second career, after leaving London effectively ended my time as a television editor. At 38, I started at the bottom again as a joiner and after 10 years, I am proud of the skills I have acquired and what I can make, sash windows, winding staircases and curved headed doors all now moved from aspiration to accomplishments.
However, I only earn about a fifth of what I used to as an editor and as a single parent, having to maintain a home for my son in a world where everything is priced for double income families, I have to rely on universal credit to survive. The point I have been working towards is which makes me happier. I have enormous job satisfaction, I am doing something I love, that I can’t imagine not doing. That is the question you must ask yourself, is what I do important to me – your intense recollections of clients and your obvious empathy for them suggests that this is something you do because you are passionate about it. I know it would be great to have both but if you can’t which do you choose?
I fully support action being taken by barristers, rail workers, public sector workers to improve their conditions but there are many of us out there without a collective voice who just have to struggle on.
Powerful, beautiful, poignant and heartbreaking. Thank you for all the unseen (and seen) work you have done and continue to do.
This reflects to a degree my partner’s experience of the bar. Middle class upbringing, smart, worked hard but no background of privilege or legacy. From the time we met (long ago!) she wanted to be a barrister, worked hard and was quite successful and reached a kind of equilibrium. Then she took silk and it was back on the treadmill again, 70 hour weeks, even higher client expectations – but now we had kids and were 20 years older. She ended up taking a judicial appointment – also a hard job but one with much more forgiving working conditions. But there was a moment when it felt like she was betraying her dreams, but the new arrangements seem to be working well. However given the senior bar is only 11% female it still strikes me as a bit of a loss to the profession. But I do like being able to see more of her!
The practice in Family Law is no different. I was reading myself in amongst the events to get to Practice and beyond. The heartfelt, soul-searching article gives one little comfort that things are going to change for the better.