take, won’t go away. A set of chambers is a bit like a family. Different members have different roles and contribute in different ways. On the one hand, the tenants doing commercial work were earning huge amounts of money, a percentage of which they would pay as “rent.” Given that their financial contribution was higher than anyone else’s, they wanted more of a say about who came in. On the other hand, those doing crime and family law were saying, “We’re providing a good service. You commercial boys are forever insisting we take on your pupils, and yet we also need people to do our work, and the people who come via you don’t want to do our work.”
So that spring of 1977 there was an internal power struggle going on in 2 Crown Office Row. The last four or five pupils who’d been taken on had all been Derry’s, and Michael Burton, who had a highly paid commercial practice, was saying that it was his turn now. Like Derry, he was an up-and-coming junior who would shortly become a Queen’s Counsel — the most senior level of barrister, known colloquially as a “silk.” Some of it, I suspect, was simply him flexing his muscles.
One evening in late spring Derry took me out for a drink and said that in his view, he couldn’t get both Tony and me taken on and that obviously, since one of us was a girl, it would be easier to get the boy taken on. Not that he could guarantee Tony would get it either, because Michael Burton was pushing hard for his pupil, but at least Tony would stand a better chance. He proposed to find me somewhere else to land.
Of course I was hurt. It was the first time I had ever been discriminated against because of my gender, and it was hard to accept that I was being pushed out simply because I wore a skirt. But at the time I thought,
That’s life.
I wasn’t on a crusade.
Derry put me in touch with Freddie Reynold, whose chambers were in 5 Essex Court. As luck would have it, Freddie and I got on instantly. He came from a family of immigrant German Jews and was about the same age as Derry, whom he had got to know through doing work for the same trade union solicitors. Freddie himself did a lot of trade union work, which was another reason Derry probably thought the arrangement might work — he had me down as a committed leftie. Of course Freddie himself could not offer me tenancy — that right belonged to the head of chambers. But as the senior figure was based in the north of England, Freddie basically said yes.
When Chris Carr heard what had happened, he couldn’t believe it. “Listen, Cherie. You are much better qualified than Tony. You are mad even to think about moving. You must stay on and fight for your place, because you deserve a place.”
Maybe. But then there was the whole romantic complication, which neither Chris nor anybody else in chambers knew about. Although I wasn’t about to admit it even to myself, the truth was that I was in love with my witty, charming rival, and the last thing I wanted was to jeopardize that, even subconsciously. As for the battle of 2 Crown Office Row, in the end Michael Burton didn’t get his pupil taken on. Instead Derry, the more senior, got his: Tony.
I probably should have stayed and fought. But I could easily have not got tenancy. Then what would I have done? Hung around like the other squatters for another six months, and then another, living on whatever crumbs Derry and the others decided to throw my way? Put Tony into the equation, and it was a real mess. A tenancy in those days meant you were there for life. In the end, of course, I didn’t stay in 5 Essex Court for life, but thanks to Freddie, I was in.
Chapter 8
Romance
M oving from 2 Crown Office Row into 5 Essex Court was like going back in time. The lower floors had generous-size rooms, but the upper floors were pure servants’ quarters, all creaking floors and ill-fitting windows. In other words, nothing much had changed since it was first built. The wards in Jarndyce
So that spring of 1977 there was an internal power struggle going on in 2 Crown Office Row. The last four or five pupils who’d been taken on had all been Derry’s, and Michael Burton, who had a highly paid commercial practice, was saying that it was his turn now. Like Derry, he was an up-and-coming junior who would shortly become a Queen’s Counsel — the most senior level of barrister, known colloquially as a “silk.” Some of it, I suspect, was simply him flexing his muscles.
One evening in late spring Derry took me out for a drink and said that in his view, he couldn’t get both Tony and me taken on and that obviously, since one of us was a girl, it would be easier to get the boy taken on. Not that he could guarantee Tony would get it either, because Michael Burton was pushing hard for his pupil, but at least Tony would stand a better chance. He proposed to find me somewhere else to land.
Of course I was hurt. It was the first time I had ever been discriminated against because of my gender, and it was hard to accept that I was being pushed out simply because I wore a skirt. But at the time I thought,
That’s life.
I wasn’t on a crusade.
Derry put me in touch with Freddie Reynold, whose chambers were in 5 Essex Court. As luck would have it, Freddie and I got on instantly. He came from a family of immigrant German Jews and was about the same age as Derry, whom he had got to know through doing work for the same trade union solicitors. Freddie himself did a lot of trade union work, which was another reason Derry probably thought the arrangement might work — he had me down as a committed leftie. Of course Freddie himself could not offer me tenancy — that right belonged to the head of chambers. But as the senior figure was based in the north of England, Freddie basically said yes.
When Chris Carr heard what had happened, he couldn’t believe it. “Listen, Cherie. You are much better qualified than Tony. You are mad even to think about moving. You must stay on and fight for your place, because you deserve a place.”
Maybe. But then there was the whole romantic complication, which neither Chris nor anybody else in chambers knew about. Although I wasn’t about to admit it even to myself, the truth was that I was in love with my witty, charming rival, and the last thing I wanted was to jeopardize that, even subconsciously. As for the battle of 2 Crown Office Row, in the end Michael Burton didn’t get his pupil taken on. Instead Derry, the more senior, got his: Tony.
I probably should have stayed and fought. But I could easily have not got tenancy. Then what would I have done? Hung around like the other squatters for another six months, and then another, living on whatever crumbs Derry and the others decided to throw my way? Put Tony into the equation, and it was a real mess. A tenancy in those days meant you were there for life. In the end, of course, I didn’t stay in 5 Essex Court for life, but thanks to Freddie, I was in.
Chapter 8
Romance
M oving from 2 Crown Office Row into 5 Essex Court was like going back in time. The lower floors had generous-size rooms, but the upper floors were pure servants’ quarters, all creaking floors and ill-fitting windows. In other words, nothing much had changed since it was first built. The wards in Jarndyce
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