Tales from practice: back to the future

The preparations went on all day, with carcasses of meat and dozens of fowl of different sizes and descriptions being prepared in the cellars of the Great Hall. Young children struggled past with huge platters laden down with swan, venison and mutton. It was not quite as splendid as the feast that took place a few days earlier in Dublin to mark the end of the Crimean War (involving three tons of potatoes, 250 hams, 200 geese and 250 joints of beef), but it was close.

At 6.30 pm, the carriages started to arrive, disembarking their distinguished occupants into the foggy gloom of a London autumn. Gas lights hissed. Street urchins wailed. The drains stank.

The occasion was the celebration of 150 years of the Solicitors Star Herald (a publication that had undergone many metamorphoses since its conception in 1706 as the Attorney Argus). The great and good of the legal profession proceeded into the Great Hall of the recently formed Law Society, where a bewigged man with a scroll that stretched down to his feet announced the guests in turn.

Soon fine wines began to flow and the noise rose to drown out the efforts of a few musicians scraping away on tired violins and puffing on exhausted wind instruments.

After many hours of eating and drinking, a bell rang and a portly gentleman rose to speak.

'Pray silence,' shouted the man with the trailing parchment, 'for Blake Bysshe-Byron, the editor of the Solicitors Star Herald.'

'Gentlemen,' he began, for naturally there were no women to be seen in the audience. 'We are here to mark not only the success of our publication, but also to record changes in the law that have occurred in the past 150 years '“ a turbulent time for the legal profession.'

To slightly slurred mutterings of 'hear hear' he went on to look back over the century and a half since the first copy of his organ was printed: the abolition of witchcraft as an offence (which he regretted, as enjoyed the spectacle of witches being burned at the stake), the Factory Acts (which he deplored: how could our fine industrialists get work done if the workforce was limited to a 12-hour day?), the Poor Law Amendment Act (much needed: keep paupers in the workhouses where they belong) and the Reform Acts (not a good idea to allow large numbers of people to have a say in who runs the country).

He also passed comment on what a warlike nation we were, crushing a rising in Ireland, capturing the Cape of Good Hope, fighting the Battle of Copenhagen, the Napoleonic War, the Peninsula War, the War of Greek Independence and the first Afghan War. On the last, he commented that our magnificent troops sorted out the problem once and for all. They would never cause any trouble again '“ ever.

Being a modern man he was interested in all 'newfangled' scientific developments '“ the introduction of the telegraph, photographs and, of course, the iron road.

Pausing to take a long drink from his goblet, he turned to the next 150 years. 'What will our successors all be doing in 2006?' he mused.

To cheers and burps (and the occasional snore, for he had already been on his feet for nearly an hour) he then set out his predictions for the development and practice of law.

Women. Women should not have the vote. As to women going into the law '“ never. He predicted that in 2006 there would still be no qualified women lawyers, and certainly no judges.

The law. He could not see much need for change by 2006. He considered that the present Corn Laws and Poor laws would be as valid in the future as they were now in 1856. He did predict that income tax, which had been introduced as a temporary measure in 1842 would soon be abolished. Two shillings in the pound was a ridiculously high rate, and once the country stopped fighting wars every five minutes this tax would no longer be necessary.

He felt that the pace of new law was adequate for our needs. The country did not need lots of new laws: half a dozen new Acts of Parliament a year was ample. He suspected that by 2006 all the law that was ever needed would have been enacted.

Offices. Would our offices be different? Here he was quite outspoken in his predictions. The introduction of the telegraph was an exciting development. He foresaw the day in the not too distant future when every office would have its own telegraph terminal, and communications in Morse code could pass between remote firms. He had been in touch with Mr Samuel Morse and had it on good authority that the words of a lease of average length could be transmitted from one office to another in less than three days.

He had also heard that machines were being invented that enabled words to be put to paper mechanically. He had little detail of what was involved but assumed that the machine would hold a quill pen and form the letters. He could not see that catching on.

Transport. He thought that transport might improve. His vision was that steam carriages might whisk people from one side of town to the other at speeds of up to ten miles an hour without horses at all. This was likely to be the ultimate development. He knew people trying to develop flying machines, but that was too ridiculous even to contemplate.

Finally he returned to his own publication. The Solicitors Star Herald was a permanent institution in the law. He had heard that a new publication called Solicitors Journal had recently been started. He very much doubted whether it would last for 150 days, let alone 150 years. Those were his last words, and they became famous because at that moment he decided to eat a brussel sprout. Sadly he then choked on it and died, as did the Solicitors Star Herald not long afterwards.