Have a hobby. The Bar can quickly become an ivory tower or, more accurately, an ivory prison if it is the only thing in your life. I have found it essential to have a pursuit outside of work pursued purely for pleasure as both a safeguard for wellbeing but also connection to people outside of work. Obviously, some hobbies are very solitary in nature, such as dry-stone walling or bee keeping. Others are extremely social, a colleague in chambers is a sensational Salsa dancer, for example. My hobby is writing and I blog about the law at Counsel of Perfection and about parenting, specifically fathering, at The Paternity Test. I’ve also developed a ‘side hustle’ as a TV legal consultant and worked on shows such Mr Bates v The Post Office and Defending The Guilty. Although I find, usually, my main task is ensuring that there are no gavels on the set. As most people don’t take the opportunity to sit in public galleries and not all are called for jury service, I believe that verisimilitude on screen is important so that people don’t get distorted views about the administration of justice, something which the events of the Summer have shown to be of critical importance.

Look after No. 1. Separate to mental and intellectual wellbeing, as I’ve entered middle age, I’ve come to understand how important physical wellbeing is too. I’ve heard it said that if you don’t hit your 40s running it’ll be much harder to start in your 50s. Self-employment has many attractions, but it is really important to realise that even the most conscientious clerks are unlikely to be keeping tabs on your fitness and only the boldest would see fit to comment on it. It’s always been the miserable paradox of fitness that when you most need to attend to it is invariably when you’re most disinclined to do so – in the midst of a particularly stressful and debilitating trial, for example. Some people manage to continue in competitive team sports for a startling length of time but if the time undeniably has come to hang up the studs that just means the chance has arrived to take up the running or dancing shoes or the yoga mat or the cleats. The important thing to remember is that Lycra is always a choice and nobody but you is making you choose it. In all earnestness, though, this was, for a long time, a profession awash with alcohol but booze has been replaced with cortisol and it is no less dangerous a substance. Too many barristers continue to die too young and no job, even one as significant as this, is worth that.

Don’t consider yourself No. 1. On the topic of No. 1, if you cast your eye over some websites or directory ‘gushings’ it would be easy to conclude that there are as many best barristers in England as there are shards of the true cross. Undoubtedly this is not a profession for wallflowers but in the space of a generation we have surrendered priestly discretion for ever more frantic and strident declarations of how brilliant we are. It was once said that the emptiest vessels make the loudest noises but that certainly does not mean they make the loveliest or most persuasive noises. In a social media world in which nobody ever boasts about or even declares their forensic disasters it can become very wearing to read about convictions being secured or acquittals won in the time it took the jury to make a show of hands in the jury room. Judges and juries decide cases on evidence. It is absolutely our job to guide and persuade but when we proclaim that verdicts were the result of our handiwork rather than the evidence we are, in effect, suggesting judges and juries have failed in their task and have been deceived. That is not a good look or anything to boast about.

Barristers are not the only professionals who have had to get to grips with the brassy new world that social media has introduced. It can undoubtedly be a force for good when barristers take time to explain and educate. However, when used to condescend, bully or insult it is the entire profession that takes the reputational hit and not just the individual. The age-old maxim applied to consumption – ‘Everything in moderation’ – could not more aptly apply in this case to self-expression also. A commonplace misapprehension of members of the public is that barristers act in accord with their clients’ views and beliefs. That was much easier to repudiate in the days when discretion was the better part of valour.

Righting wrongs. Something else which is not a good look is standing by when things have gone wrong. It has always bemused me that we use a particular expression, professional embarrassment, in circumstances where our client has said or done something which renders us unable to continue to act. To my mind professional embarrassment really arises when you’ve had a hand in something going wrong. It is difficult in any professional, social or intimate relationship to admit you’ve done something wrong. Unfortunately, in our profession the denial of wrong being done, inadvertently or not, can have catastrophic consequences for others. Something I always impress upon pupils is that at the start of a career at the Bar there are very few things gone awry that can’t be rectified but the suppression of mistakes or a lack of candour build a very dangerous foundation for a practice. Involvement in the Andrew Malkinson case was the starkest possible reminder of what happens when things go wrong in a very serious case where rectifying the wrong entailed an almost incalculable level of legal labour. Justice is, in the most basic sense, about righting wrongs and it is incumbent on all of us to work to that end and ensure always that we are part of the righting and not the wronging.

What you put in you get out. It is possible to practise law in a very selfish way motivated entirely by self-interest and financial reward. But an ‘I’m alright Jack’ approach to building a practice at the Bar almost certainly means Jill isn’t. The Inns of Court worked as a concept upon their foundation and continue to work now because self-employment gets very solitary when you think only of yourself. It’s a trite observation but educating others is an education in itself and some of my most rewarding experiences have been interacting with law students and pupil barristers. The work of the Kalisher Trust exemplifies the best of the Bar which is a turning out to the world and making our work known in a positive and inspiring way. Cloistered sequestration can make for a very comfortable life but, to my feeling at least, one without real reward. A dangerous mistake barristers can make is to assume that people know what we are for and that therefore they value what we do. It has been plain in recent years that even some politicians misapprehend the function of barristers in the justice process and it is incumbent upon all of us to demonstrate through our words and actions that we are necessary and that we add value.