You will go to the ball

It's that time of year when 'the season' is in full swing. The Inns of Court are busy hosting balls and concerts in their gardens and the annual buttering-up of solicitors is under way. On top of that we have dinners '“ circuit dinners and Bar mess dinners and association dinners. There is hardly time to go to court with all this party mania going on; one incentive to work of course is the need to pay for all these dinners and parties and concerts and balls as they do not come cheap.

We are, it seems, a convivial lot. We do like a dinner. Take the various Bar associations and the circuits. We are all very happy to fork out what is quite a lot of money to eat somewhat indifferent food in one of the Inns of Court, not really knowing why. There is often a lot of drumming up of business to be done '“ people being whipped, as it were, to attend the things in the first place. Normally on a Friday evening everyone begins to gather either very early '“ starting the drinking at around five o'clock '“ or very late, because, unlike your mates who seem either not to have been in court that day or have mysteriously despatched their business by noon and were back in chambers in good time, you were 43rd on in Canterbury at 10am and have only just finished having your sentence adjourned.

Anyway, into the penguin suits for the chaps and into the chambers' ladies for the girls '“ each sex to emerge incongruously dolled up among the usual detritus and old coffee cups and ancient briefs that litter the desks and shelves of chambers.

So, off we go and having spent all day with lawyers we spend all evening and half the night with more lawyers. I wonder what we talk about '“ work I suppose, and how gloomy and grim everything is. We drink a lot very fast on a well-manicured lawn before being herded into dinner to face the terror of the seating plan. Given the trepidation that this induces it is a wonder that we go at all. Along comes the indifferent food and everyone drinks a lot. Then there is more food and everyone drinks a lot more. Terrifyingly there might be Port '“ and everyone drinks a lot more to get their money's worth and so guaranteeing writing off the weekend due to ill-health. And then there are the speeches.

Speeches fall into two categories: brilliant or terrible. Sometimes opinion differs; a rip-roaring, close to the edge rather fruity number from a roguish old silk can have half the room howling with laughter and the other half tutting and rolling their eyes and thinking about the Human Rights Act. Some are downright dull or so full of in-jokes that nobody gets them, unless you were in that seven-hander at the Old Bailey that finished a few weeks ago. Lots of applause, however good or bad, and then there is more drinking.

Later there may be '“ with any luck '“ some scandal in the nightclubs to recount the next week and tall tales that make everyone think the hangover and the cost was worth while.

Looking for love

Is it because we are sole practitioners that we like dinners so much? Perhaps we all need to get together, feel safety in numbers and cheer ourselves up? Do solicitors engage quite so heavily in dinners, apart from the annual office party?

In the same way, we have drinks parties for solicitors and other clients '“ it is all a need to be loved. We like to say thanks for giving us the work. We need to know that there is more where that came from. I hope that really we get briefed on the quality of our advice and advocacy, rather than the quality of our wine and canapés, but we still do go through it all every year.

Perhaps we like eating and drinking so much because we don't do it very well when we are at court. A lifetime of robing room catering and plastic coffee on the train network of England and Wales does rather take the enjoyment out of things. Solicitors have sandwich bars and canteens and coffee percolators that bubble away all day '“ for us it is bring your own vile brown stuff, or bankruptcy courtesy of the takeaway market.

In the end we are a pretty insecure lot. We don't really know what people think of our performance or advice. We need to be at the dinner because we are still then at the big table; we need our professional clients to come and enjoy our hospitality so that we can be reassured that they will still be there next year, and, if they are, then so are we.

So that is what it is all about '“ we just need to know that we are loved, we do have friends, we are quite good at what we do, and we won't be forgotten by next year. So when you get an invite to a chambers drinks party please do go along '“ think of it as therapy: you are doing us all a service, and you don't want to upset us, not really. Go on, have another sausage'¦

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