Being there part 8
In Being there part 5 I talked about how barristers find themselves cross courted. Having to appear in two different court rooms possibly listed at the same time. However that difficulty pales into insignificance when you have the difficulty that the court rooms are in different cities.
Of course these cases are not listed at exactly the same time. Let us say that you have a short application listed in one court at 10 o'clock. Something that perhaps ought to take about 20 minutes. Your clerk may feel confident that you will then appear at another court an hour away at say 2 p.m.. Or, somewhat more challengingly, that you will manage to travel to a court half an hour away by noon.
What listing like this ignores completely is that your case will never be the only case in the list, and that cases never run like clockwork. Least of all do they do so when it is vital that they do. So you might arrive at court and find that the judge has had to deal with an urgent application, putting back your case until later. Or that although you're listed at 10 a.m., there are 25 other cases listed at that time, all jockeying for position. Or that although you are supposed to be first on, your client is late and so you are put further down the list. Any or all of which mean that what was supposed to be a relatively relaxed timetable, even if a little tight, suddenly becomes a white knuckle ride.
I once had something like this happened to me when I was listed in one court at 10 a.m. and then Carlisle at 2 p.m. a sudden problem wrecked the timetable. I had my clerks telephone through to the court in Carlisle that there was a problem, and then telephone again when I left the first court. I went along the motorway in great haste, managed to get into Carlisle 7 minutes before the case was due to start, and then found a space just outside the court. I arrived at just on the stroke of 2 p.m., and apologised to the judge for any inconvenience that had been caused by the uncertainty as to whether I would arrive or not. The judge pointed out that I was on time and I had caused him no inconvenience, but that given what he been told about the hour I had left the previous court he was somewhat concerned that I might have caused great inconvenience to other users of the M6 motorway.
When you find yourself with a tight timetable like that the most frustrating thing is being unable to find anywhere to park the car. Once having been somewhere else in the morning, I had what was genuinely plenty of time to get to Chester. Unfortunately, what I did not know was that the Chester races were on. There was absolutely nowhere to park. In the end, having been driving around Chester for the best part of half an hour, I found somewhere that was a long way from the court room with only 10 minutes to go, just time to get there at a fast run. It was a blisteringly hot day. Clutching 2 very heavy bags, and wearing a three-piece suit, I ran the whole way. The good news was I was on time (just). The bad news was that after my successful sprint I was blinking so as to be able to see and avoid the sweat pouring off my forehead. The judge sensibly suggested that he would give me five minutes to allow me to go and wash my face.
Barrister should always try and save face for his client his solicitor and for himself (in that order), but this was a rather unusual way of going about it.