Prompting other lawyer parents to do the same
Working from home during the coronavirus lockdown can have its drawbacks, particularly for lawyers with young children.
Serjeants’ Inn Chambers’ Bridget Dolan QC is one of those lawyers. But the top clinical negligence silk took to Twitter this week to share her ingenious plan to keep her children in line, positing an image of a tongue-in-cheek “legal notice” which she’s hung from her ‘office’ door.
The “Important Notice”, typed up in black and red ink, advises her offspring that “[t]he thing you think you can see inside this room is not your mother”.
Day 2 of isolation. Kids coping better than me. Very happy to email anyone who wants it a copy of the essential document I needed to draft this am pic.twitter.com/QptM2ouj6r
— Bridget Dolan QC (@DrBridgetDolan) March 24, 2020
“It is a barrister being stressed out by having to conduct conferences with solicitors and telephone hearings with judges from home whilst also juggling paperwork and responding to a tsunami of emails,” the amusing missive continues.
The note — which has since gone mega-viral with nearly 6,000 retweets and 35,000 likes — explains that “the thing inside” can “perform no parental functions” unless such functions are “required by reason of medical emergency”. This, according to Dolan, is “defined as extreme pain or any episode of bleeding for more than 3 minutes”.
“For the avoidance of doubt, hunger is not a medical emergency,” she writes.
Dolan’s post prompted a number of other home-working lawyers to share their warnings. 42 Bedford Row family barrister Rachel Chan posted a picture of her daughter holding a sign that reads: “Court hearing in progress. No entry. Keep quiet please!”
Love it!
A little more sophisticated than my one, written by 7yo dragon pic.twitter.com/l3oZB5nhs8— Rachel Chan (@RachelChan42br) March 24, 2020
Meanwhile, Angela Tippins shared a slightly more simplistic but nonetheless effective effort.
My one. I’m getting the kids on to a more colourful version tomorrow pic.twitter.com/9CSYG66x0T
— Angela Tippins (@angelatippins) March 24, 2020
It appears dogs can also prove problematic, according to another sign.
Here is mine! pic.twitter.com/VGJ7SzYtIF
— Caroline Lister (@cjlister) March 25, 2020
