A benchmark of success
Today at around about 1 p.m., I will be formally admitted as a Bencher in the Great Hall of Lincoln's Inn. There are various points in any career where you take stock of where you are up to. Admission as a Bencher is one of those times.
The small number of Benchers run the Inn (relying of course on the professional staff) and are technically responsible for its debts. The three grades of member are student, Barrister and Bencher. I have now gone through all three categories. (The next category I think is deceased Bencher and for understandable reasons I am anxious to postpone that for as long as reasonably possible!).
When you are a student or a newly qualified barrister Benchers seem a world away. One thing Benchers try and do is to assist aspiring students and barristers. They were often helpful, and always courteous. The idea of ever being a Bencher seemed inconceivable. Of course in those days the very idea of being old enough to be a Bencher seemed inconceivable because it seemed so far away.
From the vantage point of the top table my fellow Benchers and myself will see barristers and students having lunch. I will wonder which of those present will become Benchers in their turn. Obviously some of the barristers will, but there will also be various new students who in due course will be successful barristers and eventually QCs and Benchers.
Strangely being elevated to the bench has made me think more about those early days as a student and early days as a struggling barrister. I went to Lincoln's Inn because one of my best friends had gone there and I decided to join him. Due to some ill fortune (or what seemed like ill fortune at the time) he was not taken on as a tenant after his pupillage and eventually requalified as a solicitor. Since he is now an immensely successful and wealthy partner at a Magic Circle City Firm, he probably sometimes breathes a sigh of relief that he did not end up pursuing a career as a criminal barrister. We would go to student dining together where we would find to others to form a "mess" of four people. The mess would share alcohol to cater for four people. Given the large number of Muslim students at the Inn (given its strong overseas links quite apart from any British Muslim members there would always be large numbers of foreigners who would come over to obtain the barrister's qualification in England and become a member of the Inn) we would always try and be seated with two Muslim students so that we personally got double wine allocation. This simple but effective means of ensuring that as impoverished students we really got our money's worth, was also a good way of meeting all sorts of different people from different countries. In the student days of ensuring that as much drink was available as cheaply as possible, thoughts of ever becoming a Bencher were non-existent.
Many of the foreign students would return to their own countries and some would end up with significant legal or political posts. When one looks at the positions attained by members of Lincoln's Inn, the attainment of those foreign students are prominent. Some become Honorary Benchers, others are guests at the various receptions hosted by Benchers. I often wonder if I will ever be speaking to a foreign contemporary at a reception hosted by the Benchers, only to be told by this foreign dignitary "I remember when I was at Lincoln's there were these two students who always used to sit with Muslims so that they could drink more wine. I wonder what happened to them.". You never know.