I admit it. I used to be a news reporter. On this very newspaper.
Later I was even a tabloid news reporter on other newspapers. Jobs that frankly were a privilege to do. And occasionally fabulous fun. But there was always one little problem.
As soon as you told people, especially socially, what you did for a living they would sidle away in horror. Text you later saying: “see when I mentioned I used to have zits? Don’t put it in the paper will you. No seriously.” Sigh.
After many, many years of chipping away at the coal face of truth I decided to be something else. Double glazing salesman, charity call centre worker, debt collector? Hmmm.
Hang on, I thought. I’ve got a law degree burning a hole in my pocket. I’ll became a Criminal Defence Lawyer.
People may even want to talk to me. And they occasionally do. Usually to ask: How can you defend those guilty people? Or as a Geordie woman who claimed to be from a victim support organisation once said to me many years ago.
“You defend scum. You-ah, go down-ah on you-ah knees and beg for them.” Sigh.
I’ll be honest here and admit I am a little odd. I believe that this defence lawyer job too is a kind of privilege. I have this notion that journalists and court lawyers are two of the sorts of people who actually keep some of our liberal democracy in place. Mad I know. But I also suspect that every single court day defence lawyers by challenging evidence, by asking whether laws are being properly interpreted, are maybe even in a little way holding back the constantly hungry state from creeping up your path and gobbling up your civil liberties.
Anyway, I would say that. But I’ll tell you something that we defence lawyers are not good at. Representing ourselves as a group. I recently read a report by Audit Scotland on the sheriff court system which if you are a defence lawyer is frankly a little depressing.
I’m a little depressed anyway. Is it just me or aren’t there potential solutions to some of the problems facing our overwhelmed court system that are missing? If so whose fault is that? The Law Society? No. It already does an excellent job in the face of overwhelming challenges and a terrifyingly wide remit of which criminal law is only one tiny part. Local bar associations, of which I am a member of one? Nope. Volunteers and very busy. Audit Scotland?
Presumably they can only act on the input they get. The fact is the defence side of the equation, the men and women in court everyday, who know as much as anyone how it all works, who have views on the law, consists mainly of over-pressed people in very small firms who don’t have the time or resources to engage fully in these important exercises. We may not be hugely popular, but we do have something to say. The problem is finding an effective way to say it.
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