Shock and Awe part 1

Reputation counts in advocacy as in everything else. Never be fooled by any suggestion that it does not.

The quality of the judiciary in this country is extremely high. The integrity of the judiciary in this country is beyond question. However every Judge is (hopefully!) a human being, even if occasionally judges you appear in front of appear determined to try to conceal the fact. They therefore to some extent will be swayed by those things which can sway every human being. Even more so will jurors and witnesses be swayed.

To some extent an extreme version of this was seen in the OJ Simpson trial. Legal commentators were frequently going on about how Simpson had the dream team and lawyers who are the best that money could buy. They were eulogised in even relatively standard questioning. Whilst not suggesting for a moment that OJ Simpson did not have talented lawyers, anyone who was aware of this coverage would be expecting what those lawyers said to be significant because of the way they had been built up beforehand. That would certainly have been the view of most members of the public following the trial.

Insofar as lawyers attain publicly renowned status, such as George Carman QC did during his years at the top, then jurors are unlikely to be unaffected by this. Of course people such as George Carman QC only get their reputation because of a series of titanic performances. However once the legend is added to the considerable reality the effect is even more potent.

By reputation one is not purely judging ability. Honesty and integrity are also crucial. In the excellent book "A Sparrow's Flight" by the former Lord Chancellor Lord Hailsham, one of the things he talks about is the importance for any barrister to have a reputation for absolute honesty and fair dealing. He correctly identifies that that will always stand the barrister in good stead when dealing with judges and opponents. Quite apart from the fact that it is both necessary as a member of such a profession as a barrister, well as being morally right, to show scrupulous integrity in your court performances and dealing with opponents, he correctly identifies that in addition any advantage you might gain in one case from not playing fair will soon be cancelled out by the suspicion with which judges and opponents will view what you do. Word soon gets around about barristers who are bit slippery and have to be watched. It gets around amongst other barristers, and it gets around amongst judges. They then find that their lives are unnecessarily complicated because everyone is always looking out for some "trick" being pulled. It is a sort of integrity version of the boy who cried wolf.

Reputation is not just a question of being known nationally. It is relevant to every court you appear in, every Judge you appear in front of. Judges are trained to give everyone a fair hearing, and invariably succeed. Having said that, if you frequently talk nonsense in court, and appear not to know what you are doing, a judge would have to be a saint not to notice the fact. It doesn't mean that he or she won't listen to your arguments, but on those occasions when you have a difficult and apparently hopeless argument, you will probably find you get a bit more latitude than would otherwise be the case if you have established a reputation for only taking sensible points in a cogent and logically argued way. Sometimes a point that has merit can sound like nonsense at first blush, but when the argument is developed it seems more realistic. When you have a case like that, you want the judge if possible to think that your track record means you are unlikely to be talking rubbish, and that therefore they should keep an open mind as long as possible. It may only make a slight difference to the latitude you get, but very occasionally a slight difference is what you need to be able to win a difficult argument.