Portrait of a competent solicitor

All around me, fellow lawyers were talking loudly of their successes – of the judges they had wowed, the defendants they had bowed and the clients they had endowed (with fortunes). All I could offer
as an achievement was a modest payment for a broken tooth.

The occasion was the annual rush to accumulate enough continuing professional development (CPD) points to keep us legal for another year. This will
all change soon – when, instead, we will have to meet ‘a proper standard of legal practice and of training
and supervision’. The changes are not with us yet. According to the SRA website they will not be implemented until November 2016, but I await with interest the statement from the SRA to be issued in the spring of 2015 which will indicate ‘what a competent solicitor should look like.’

In advance of the SRA guidelines, I venture a few suggestions. In order to provide balance, it will be necessary also
to consider the characteristics of an incompetent solicitor.

An incompetent solicitor will: pay insufficient attention to personal hygiene; wear loud shirts bearing images of pitbull terriers and/or palm trees; will have shocking pink hair, have visible tattoos on face, neck and arm; have an excessive amount of ironwork dangling from mouth, both ears, and nostrils; wear trainers and odd socks; not wear
a waistcoat when appearing before a county court judge;
and will only eat junk food.

On the other hand, a competent solicitor will look the part: they
will wear a suit with pinstripes
so thick they will appear to have
been drawn on in chalk (as indeed they will have been for legal aid solicitors who will not earn enough to enable them to buy expensive attire); will have a leather brief case with their initials monogrammed on it (or with someone else’s if they picked up the wrong one from court); eat only wholesome food; and shower at least once a month.

Having condemned myself
to the former category (I am still saving up for the ironwork and tattoos), let me resume my day
out in London for my CPD points. The course was organised by the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) and was presented by veteran lecturer John McQuater. Besides terrifying me with all the things I did not know, he also mentioned the comedy sitcom
Is it Legal? broadcast in the
late 1990s.

On the basis that one always
has to do what the teacher says,
I ordered the complete set. If only one could be awarded CPD points for watching it, I am sure that most solicitors would painlessly comply.

Is it Legal? features a fictitious law firm Lotus, Spackman & Phelps and stars, among others, Imelda Staunton, the ferocious senior partner, Patrick Barlow, nervous downtrodden managing partner, Richard Lumsden, naive and drippy assistant solicitor and
Kate Isitt, the smoulderingly attractive secretary who
cannot spell.

It is a delicious, and startlingly realistic, spoof about a small solicitor’s office. Much of it is refreshingly anarchic and politically incorrect. The only
thing missing was that you barely ever saw a client – but maybe
that makes for a perfect law firm. Clients get in the way of work. What shines through is that Lotus, Spackman & Phelps was a fun place to work.

We are nearing the season of goodwill and office parties. These days, life is far too serious. Whether or not you look like a competent solicitor, my advice, as you approach the end of the year, is that you should all become a little silly. Start modestly with almost imperceptible tricks – a whoopee cushion here, a fake client there and build up gradually to the kind of caper that will either get you fired or ensure you are the hero
of the firm.

There is a serious point here,
for which I will award you one CPD minute: laughter and playing jokes are very good for you. It helps creativity and builds relationships. Anthropologist Isabel Behncke Izquierdo recently said on Radio 4: “Positive emotion literally opens your mind. Play is the chemistry
of ‘yes’. We like to contrast it to the physics of ‘no’. The physics of ‘no’ is the state that you find very often, especially when confronting health and safety committees.”

That’s the message. If you must look like a competent solicitor, you should still strive to have fun. If, like me, you fall into the other category, enjoy it anyway and add Is it Legal? to your Christmas wish list. SJ

Richard Barr receives no commission for the sale of copies of Is it Legal?

Richard Barr is a consultant with Scott-Moncrieff & Associates

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