While reading this thread about One Brick Court Silks, I checked out the 1BC link and found this page devoted to their “clerks”. Based on the information given, it seems that some of these people have advanced responsibilities that would probably carry a grander title than clerk, elsewhere–for instance, the IT manager and the marketing director. And what of the run-of-the-mill clerks? My first thought was that they are like legal secretaries in the United States, but there aren’t nearly enough of them listed here for a law firm of that size. What do these clerks do, and what are their qualifications? Is being a law-chambers clerk considered a good career?
In fiction at least (I have no experience of the real legal world), being a clerk in a barristers’ chambers is a really cool thing to be. There is not much in the way of career progression, more a job for life, but since they earn a healthy percentage of the barristers fee, they should never be poor. The stereotypical clerk would have a working class background, little or no formal training/qualifications and probably got the job because his father had it before him. They are responsible for passing on work to their barristers and can thus make or break a promising legal career. They are therefore well provided for around Christmastime
Interesting you should mention that. The 1BC website doesn’t seem to have it today, but when I looked at it yesterday it had more information about that, seeming to suggest that the clerks serve a gatekeeper function, guiding the client to the most suitable barrister, based on the case at hand. Presumably some prospects would also be rejected. Either way, it seems that the clerks would have to pick up quite a bit of legal knowledge to do this effectively. While in America, I think clients generally approach a law firm with a specific lawyer in mind.
The key to the importance of the clerk is that barristers are not allowed to form firms. Thus, they can’t have as an adjunct all the support services that a firm could have paid for. Because they nonetheless need such support services, the clerk for a chambers kind of gets the upper hand on the barristers that occupy quarters in the chambers. The barristers rely on the clerk to do everything for them, but the clerk isn’t really their subordinate. It’s an interesting relationship. The clerk is in charge of assigning briefs (cases) to the barristers and is responsible for collecting fees from solicitors and passing them on to the barristers after taking the clerk’s cut.
BTW we do have “law clerks” in the U.S., but that usually refers to a law school student doing routine legal work in a law office.
It should also be noted that in Britain the word “clerk” is pronounced the way Americans would pronounce “clark.”
I don’t know why the pronunciation of ‘clerk’ is especially relevant here, but thanks, FTB for the input.
acsenray’s answer is interesting. It seems like the clerks do all the business related stuff, leaving the barristers to practice their profession. That doesn’t sound like a bad system. My father often criticized his med school education for not teaching business methods, and I imagine there are many lawyers who feel the same way about their education.