We can be heroes, just for one day

Finally the winds are starting to blow from the north and the leaves are sweetly turning – but far from going to the Hebrides we are all now back in the swing
of the New Year: a new legal year. Justice Sunday has seen cathedrals up and down the land packed with the great and the good to bless the new legal year and all of us who work within the law.

Odd, really. Lawyers are, for the most part, on the end of jokes such as: ‘What-is-the-difference-between-a-dead skunk-hit-by-a-car-and a dead lawyer?’ answer: ‘Skid-marks-in-front-of-the-skunk’ etc.

And then there are those who wear the oh-so-amusing t-shirt featuring the Shakespeare quote: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”. So when we are the ones being thanked it all gets a little confusing. Hang on – we thought you hated us?

Despite having had parts of my body harangued off me over the years by those who work in far more important jobs, like writing reviews of computer games or designing websites
for media type luvvies, the quick retort is how they will feel when they suddenly need a lawyer.

Faced with a fantastically unfair clause in a contract,
a bullying landlord, an unreasonable boss, or dare we suggest it, a criminal charge that is in fact not a true bill, suddenly they need someone
to fight their corner. Often we end up with said person for not too much or any money at all. It is after all lawyers who are the ones who end up righting a wrong, and it is lawyers who take on the unfashionable
case that turns out to have
merit after all, and it is lawyers who fight all the way according to the rule of law.

And what a thing that is.
In the Scottish Referendum
we saw that whichever side of the vote people were on,
the outcome was one that had to be accepted; apart from the Russians, who found all sorts of technical faults with the process and were terribly upset about
it all – a welcome piece of light relief amid the otherwise sobering issues to contend with.

No masked men in guns as
on the Ukraine/Russia border, no homicidal fanatics corrupting a peaceful religion in the name of political slaughter, no bribes, no bungs, no beatings up: all thanks to the rule of law.

It is all about respect.
Perhaps the fact that often we are loathed is a healthy sign.
It means we are effective, that we do the right thing by our clients rather than by the provider of the brown envelope, it means that if we are upsetting someone else then we are making a difference.

So thank you Justice Sunday for taking time out for us all to be appreciated, just for one day of the year. As David Bowie once sang – we can be heroes, just for one day. SJ

Felix is the pen name for a barrister practising in London

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