County court notice flags up the lack of love between barristers and solicitors

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By Judge John Hack on

Segregation attempt triggers social media outrage from the larger branch of legal profession

It’s difficult to know where to start with this treasure trove of entertainment, all bundled into a couple of short lines and some Clipart.

Firstly, the message was probably not constructed by an open-minded and thoroughly modern member of the legal profession. No, whoever produced this gem is not fully up to speed with developments over the last two-plus decades and the growth of solicitor advocacy.

But as Nicholas Diable, a London criminal law solicitor specialising in drink driving cases, points out, sometimes it is very difficult for his side of the profession to like the bar.

Indeed, responses to Diable’s tweet of this photo earlier today suggested that one only need scratch the surface to uncover some fairly passionate inter-professional dislike. For example, here’s the response of Jennie Kreser, a pensions partner at City of London law firm Silverman Sherliker.

But perhaps the most striking howler in this note — left recently in an unidentified county court robing room — is the inexcusable apostrophe cock-up. The barrister or barristers with a phobia about mixing with the underclass known as solicitors clearly struggled with English grammar at school.

Unless, that is, those concerned have a phobia about just one particular solicitor, whom they would like to see banished to the isolated exile of the fourth floor … next to court 9 …