Newly-qualified barristers have had their careers put on pause as a result of the pandemic, Chief Justice Frank Clarke has said (1 March).

“I wouldn’t like to be a young barrister starting my career this last year,” the chief justice said, at the NUI Galway Law Society 100th anniversary celebrations.

He said that young barristers had been “differentially affected” by the pandemic shutdown in courts, though top-earning briefs working in the Supreme Court had been working as many cases as normal.

“Younger barristers, who might go out to a remote District Court for a couple of minor things, such as parking [ticket offences], and learned their trade but also began to earn a little money, are finding themselves impacted,” he said.

It would be naïve to think the pandemic hadn’t had a bad effect on those unlucky enough to come into practice at the wrong time, the chief justice commented.

Reinvention

He said that what he liked about being a barrister was the ability for reinvention, from junior to senior counsel.

And having become a judge, the role of an appellate judge was very different to that of trial judge, he said.

“Maybe you get stale if you do the same thing for too long. I was lucky enough to become a senior counsel very young, at 33,” he said.

Major cases

Having been involved in a fair number of major cases, the chief justice said that he realised in his 40s that he would like to apply his skills in a different way, by going on the bench.

The one thing he would change in order to facilitate greater access to justice would be greater availability of legal aid, in conjunction with other reforms, he stated.

He added that he didn’t believe that the unification of the solicitor and barrister professions would add to the effective running of the Irish courts. Other jurisdictions had found that, after unification, an independent referral bar grew on an ad hoc basis, because there was a need for it.

Decreasing access

The top trial lawyers would live only in big firms, in a unified profession, he believed. And the ability to access them would be diminished, decreasing access to justice, he warned.

The ability of small-practice solicitors to access leading barristers is not a system to be changed without guarantees, he added. “I don’t actually think it would improve things, and I think it might disimprove things.”

The chief justice commented that the press had a difficult task in accurately reporting what went on in the courts, often under time and space constraints – and did a good job.

The judiciary could help by offering synopses of cases in train, he said, rather than expecting reporters to summarise 40-page judgments in a coherent 60- or 90-second TV report, under deadline, he concluded.