What Judges Want: a reply - if the court pleases.

You can bet your life on it. At every legal conference there will be a Judge’s presentation of a particular kind. Sometimes the titles mislead. Affective Advocacy sounds innocuous enough, a nice little post-lunch soporific easing one towards the evening’s networking opportunities. Other titles, The View from the Bench, at least hint at their purpose.

Sometimes it can be slow and painful.

Still others are like a merciful kill shot between the eyes of a wounded beast: What Judges Want is unequivocal.

         Whatever the title don’t be fooled, the presentation is not so much an opportunity for the bench to guide and nurture, as it is a chance to warn, threaten and even punish.

Sometimes gentle humiliation is the order of the day, a slow and painful process. At other times unrestrained brutally is on display. One example of the former is the even-toned and veiled reference to a practitioner who can only be identified by reading the Court of Appeal decision in which they are criticised. While the later is the re-telling of an infamous war story, characterised by an increasingly manic delivery and punctuated by comments like: ‘I mean really. What was she thinking?’ or, ‘the man’s an imbecile. Is he still practicing?’

Any one bring a map?

One way or another we know what judges want. Competence and diligence, marked by assistance when they need it, brevity when they want it and laughter when they crave it. Occasionally they want something else. Fear. Today, mercifully, this is demanded rarely and only in extreme circumstances. Though never excused it might sometimes at least be explained: when judicial wheels come off and a trial is careering towards a calamitous, very public end and someone must be blamed for example.

         I have sat though my fair share of What Judges Wants. Today it is my turn to reply. To say what counsel wants, or at least, what one weary, court-worn counsel of modest capacity wants – if the court pleases.

         It’s not hard really. I’m a simple fellow and don’t expect the universe from my judgely betters. Certainly not encyclopaedic legal knowledge informing wondrous judicial wisdom delivered with ethereal elegance. (There are too few such judges to go around.) Nor do I require prettiness, wit or the gift of flight.

To my mind, the gift of flight is not a judicial prerequisite.

What I crave is civility, even-temperedness, diligence, clarity of thought and expression, fairness, understanding and humility. Our profession is hard enough without crankiness, confusion and disorder inflicted upon us from on high. Happily, such bad characteristics, along with the worst of them all, bullying, are rare today.

The Bench, like so many other men’s clubs is slowly changing. Diversification in all its guises is slow but inexorable. The bench may have always reflected the profession, but one day it will reflect a profession that more truly reflects the community. To my mind practitioners from diverse cultural, familial, geographic, scholastic and working backgrounds build a profession of greater breadth and depth. Such a profession will, in time, further nourish the bench. It is happening my friends. Give it time.

If you liked this piece, then look out for Judicial Bullying: knotted knickers and other dilemmas. If you didn’t like this piece, then look out for Judicial Bullying: knotted knickers and other dilemmas - you might like that one more.