'It's time we had our hair cut, sir. We are booked in for 11am'

Comment

It is perfectly true that a barrister whose car breaks down on the motorway will tend to ring his clerk rather than the AA. It is also true that senior clerks still say to their "governors" such things as "it is about time we had our hair cut sir; we are booked in for 11am". However, despite these vestiges from the past the role of senior clerks has changed drastically over the years.

It is perfectly true that a barrister whose car breaks down on the motorway will tend to ring his clerk rather than the AA. It is also true that senior clerks still say to their "governors" such things as "it is about time we had our hair cut sir; we are booked in for 11am". However, despite these vestiges from the past the role of senior clerks has changed drastically over the years.

They used to be a sort of autocratic butler who presented their bill at the end of the quarter scribbled on the back of an envelope. Nowadays they tend to be computer literate and the leader of a young team often working with a chambers director who deals with much of the administration, leaving the senior clerks to do "clerking". Their bill is computer generated.

You do not need Mensa intelligence to be a good clerk but you do need to know your way around. Good senior clerks are on affectionate first-name terms with all those court clerks around the country who fix the dates for hearings. A clash of dates is a big problem to the busy barrister.

In addition they fix the fees. They know how much their governor is worth on the open market. They also allocate work that comes into chambers without the client having specified a particular barrister. This is the opportunity to further the career of younger members of chambers.

In bygone days the senior clerk received a hefty commission. The life of a senior clerk then was usually short but merry. More and more are now on a straight salary. It may be less merry but they remain in office longer.

They are not always perfect of course. There was one senior barrister - who later became a judge - who disliked his clerk so intensely that he only spoke to him through an intermediary. Sometimes cracks do appear in the arrangements - such as booking the head of chambers into the local knocking shop in mistake for a Trust House Forte hotel.

Personality is all important. Good clerks tend to be versatile. Apart from conventional clerking they know all about the nasty side of VAT and income tax and how to extract rent from busy members of chambers who do not like to discuss money. They know all about football and quite often can bat and bowl for the chambers' cricket team.

They are also good at improvising. If a barrister were to turn up at the House of Lords for a case only to discover that he had forgotten his wig and robes, it would take but a second for the senior clerk to borrow somebody else's gear and leave an explanatory note.

One exceptional clerk that we had, realising I needed my papers in the House of Lords, ran through the security cordon at the Houses of Parliament to get the documents to me in time, only to be marched off to Marlborough Street police station for questioningafterwards.

No one quite knows how or why the system works but it does. It just takes a little while to get used to being called "Sir" even when going for a quick single.

* Anthony Scrivener QC is a former chairman of the Bar Council.