Charter Chief Clerk Profile in The Times
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| by Mary Gold,
The Times |
07.09.04 |
Barristers' clerks are the fixers, nursemaids and agents of the Bar. Our corrrespondent talks to Patrick Duane, of Charter Chambers, about the job.
WHEN Lord Irvine of Lairg was at the Bar, he famously used to ask his clerk to peel his oranges for him. It wouldn’t have happened with Patrick Duane. He looks more like a man who can have his own oranges peeled, or even a grape if it comes to that. This unassuming barristers’ clerk (nickname Duracell) is the quiet motor behind Charter Chambers, the base for some of the brightest legal brains in Britain.
And the latest newcomers to the chambers are not shy of admitting that Duane is the main reason they are at Charter. In a short time he has been followed there by Jerome Lynch, QC (defends famous sports stars), Trevor Burke, QC (defends infamous popstars) and Henry Grunwald (murderers, that kind of thing). “He’s the best clerk there is,” Burke, who credits Duane with most of his celebrity cases, says simply.
Duane dislikes the word poacher, but admits: “I have made a concerted effort to get good quality people in here. The best clerk in the world is worthless if the barristers are useless. We’ve got 55 lawyers and no duffers.” It does make you wonder what he would say should he discover a duffer in his midst.
The secret of good clerking, Duane says, is being accountant, PR man and nursemaid all at once, and picking the right people for the right cases. “If a barrister can’t add two and two then what use will he or she be in a fraud case?” So has he ever had to tell a barrister he was in the wrong profession? “Yes, of course. Once I sent a young barrister to prosecute a case and he got confused and ended up defending. It was a shambles. I suggested he try a different line of business and the last thing I heard he had made a fortune from property. I was pleased for him.” He is very much the new-style barristers’ clerk. It is a job that has changed beyond recognition in the past 15 years. The clerks have shaken off their Victorian barrow-boy image and become well-respected 21st-century technocrats. These days they even have their own magazine, Clerks Room, which has a flatshare section — ironic when you consider that some earn more than £300,000 a year.
Duane says: “This job is like being a theatrical agent, but instead of actors you have barristers and most of them are frustrated actors anyway. Clerks are often accused of favouritism because they don’t give out jobs to certain barristers but a few won’t accept their own failings, and just blame the clerk. I never forget that I have 55 mortgages to look after and we’re fortunate that, like undertakers, we have regular business. There are some spiteful clerks whose aim is to keep certain barristers out of the courts but clerks are on commission so what’s the sense of that? I’ve certainly never done it.”
So how much does Duane earn? He won’t say, muttering darkly about “maintenance”, but the salaries of senior clerks are legendary. He is on a percentage (less than 10 per cent) of the chambers’ overall yearly earnings. The chambers, or set, is made up of learning or earning barristers, so a senior clerk can expect to make £150,000 a year and often considerably more. Not bad for a glorified fixer, you might think. But it’s not that simple. Duane’s hours are long (8.30am to 7pm and frequently more). Pressurised barristers mean pressurised clerks, particularly on Friday evenings, which in legal circles are a sort of injunction rush hour.
His only indulgences, apart from good holidays with his children and partner (where he reads John Grisham on the beach), are a Saab convertible and a Spurs season ticket.
The clerk system works extremely well, he says. “Ten years ago some chambers brought in outsiders to run it like a business because they thought clerks were earning too much. It didn’t work and now they realise we’re worth the money. I have built up my contacts over 30 years and you cannot bring in outsiders to do that. Some barristers are also hopeless on computers, which I’m not, so I help them.” Are there any other clerks that he admires? “Of course. Michael Greenaway in Queen Elizabeth Buildings has a good set of chambers, he’s honest and he works hard. He’s also a fantastic PR man.”
Duane, 51, followed the traditional route for clerks — young man of modest background decides not to go to university and works his way up to a hefty salary through sheer determination. He was born, to hardworking Irish parents, as he puts it, in a flat “at the back of Drury Lane”, and from his boyhood bedroom, which overlooked the theatre, he watched the chorus girls getting changed. He went to Parmiters Grammar in Bethnal Green where he excelled at English, maths and woodwork. A career in carpentry beckoned after he made a coffee table and sold it for five shillings.
But then fate intervened. At 16 he was working in a newsagent’s shop in Temple when a barrister popped in for his paper and asked if he knew anyone who wanted a job as a barrister’s clerk. “My father didn’t want me to do it, he thought it wasn’t secure enough. But I was playing for the Inns of Court football team and asked Lord Scarman, who was the chairman, what he thought and he said he couldn’t recommend the job highly enough.” After his team was thrown out of the league for fighting, Duane decided to take the job at Goldsmith Buildings and was paid £10 a week, cash in hand. After 13 years at the chambers of Richard Ferguson, he moved to 2 Dr Johnson’s Buildings, now Charter Chambers, in 2001.
Rarely does he go to court. This may be something to do with an embarrassment as a 16-year-old clerk. “I was waiting to speak to a barrister at the Old Bailey when this robed woman came up and asked me what I was doing. I said, ‘I’m waiting for my barrister’, and the next thing I knew I was in the dock. It was a while before they realised it was a huge mistake and by then everyone was sniggering and I was as red as a beetroot.”
So has the job changed much in 35 years? “In some ways. In those days chambers were smaller and more relaxed. Records were kept in dusty old ledgers and on an index-card system. But you still meet interesting people — those that are on bail anyway.” Are clerks more powerful now than in the past? “No, they have always been powerful.” Lynch agrees: “Clerks now are a cross between businessme n and agents, in the same way as you get good agents for footballers and actors. Patrick has the contacts because he has been in the business so long and, importantly, people feel they can trust him.” Burke says: “Every case, every solicitor and every fee is logged in the recesses of his mind and a single pint of Guinness will unlock it. I also can beat him at golf which is an important consideration. ” High praise indeed.
So has Duane got his eye on luring any other barristers at the moment? “Yes, I always have. Two in particular.” As I am leaving, Duane asks about the obvious injuries to my face, caused when my ride-on lawnmower went down a rabbit hole and I crashed into a tree. “Oh you poor thing,” he says, his voice deep with what I mistake for sympathy. “Trouble is,” he says, sighing deeply, “you can’t sue yourself or the tree can you . . . or the rabbit?” True enough. Perhaps he could send for someone to peel me a grape instead . . . |
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