Keeping Focus Part 2
Last week we looked at the minor irritant of barristers waiting for silk results. However what about when the barrister really has some serious personal problem or issue. What then?
I know of one barrister who successfully kept his practice going through cancer treatment. Just because you have problems or issues in your life doesn't mean you will necessarily take your eye off the ball professionally. However the risk that you might do is something that you always have to be aware of.
Relationship difficulties, problems with your children, problems with your parents or friends or whoever, health problems, accidents happening to loved ones, career problems, financial problems. Barristers are no more immune to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune than anyone else. At any one time therefore to a greater or lesser degree they may have turmoil in their personal life. How do they cope and what should they do?
In part this must depend upon your perspective. I have had various turbulent periods in my life (which for obvious reasons I will not go into!). Daft though it may sound, I always found work, and especially going to court, a haven from difficulties. In a court case even when things are going wrong, I feel on top of the situation and know what needs to be done to address the problem (even though inevitably that is not always successful). Moreover when you are working, particularly in court, you are absolutely gripped by the work you are doing. There is no time to think about anything apart from the court case. Those of you who have skied down a challenging slope will know the principle. It is simply impossible to even think about anything else because things are hurtling towards you the entire time and you have to throw all your efforts and energies into the thing you are doing. Conducting cases is like that. In personally stressful periods I have always found the court work a refuge from whatever the problem was, because I would be totally focused on something completely different, not difficulties or personal problems, and doing something I both enjoy and am good at.
There is always a limit. It was said of one cabinet minister that when his son had been killed in World War I he was simply "not there" at subsequent meetings, present in body but not in spirit. The interests of the lay client are always paramount. If you think that there is a real risk that you cannot do your job properly, then you have to withdraw. Sometimes it means that someone else has to step in at short notice, sometimes it might mean a case having to be adjourned. If however you cannot do your job properly in particular circumstances then you have to say so. As against that, it has to be sufficiently serious that you think that is the position. Barristers always have to work hard to make sure they "get themselves up" for the struggle. It has to be something really serious to justify dropping out. If however it is that serious, personal pride is irrelevant. The client comes first.