Using opponent’s first name and emailing judge too
An experienced family law barrister has taken to social media to reflect on how life at the bar has changed since he qualified nearly 30 years ago.
In a Twitter thread over the weekend titled ‘Some things that have changed since I became a barrister’, 1GC Family Law’s Julien Foster explained how the legal profession’s push to go paperless means he no longer has to “hump heavy wheelie bags” around the country.
This lighter load does, however, have its drawbacks. “I can carry numerous pages of medical disclosure on a device smaller than my telephone,” the barrister explains. “Many of the medical notes remain illegible and I have to rotate many clockwise, then anti-clockwise twice, then back.”
Another change noted by Foster is the use of the eye-catching pink ribbon often seen wrapped around barristers’ briefs.
I neither get briefs tied with pink ribbon nor teach pupils (as I was taught) the cardinal importance of tying up one set of papers before opening another. Instead I get numerous emails, some embedded like Russian dolls. Or a portal requiring the skills of Indiana Jones to open.
— Julien Foster (@childrenlawyer) December 3, 2022
And using an opponent’s first name.
It would be seen as pompous if I were to address an opponent I had met for the first time by their surname alone. Still odd but not pompous to address an opponent met for first time by their honorific and surname: first names prevail except in front of clients which is also odd.
— Julien Foster (@childrenlawyer) December 3, 2022
Other tweaks noted by Foster is checking something on your mobile phone in court (if relevant to the case, of course!), using Google to look something up and emailing documents directly to the judge rather than pleading with ushers to make photocopies.
Some lawyers even chipped in with their changes, with one noting they “saw a barrister wearing trainers”. God forbid!