Become a better lawyer: running a case, doing a deal, moving in-house and other tips from the top

I’d wanted to come to the Bar since I watched my father, who was a policeman, give evidence in court. However, life intervened. My father died quite young and the resulting financial constraints meant that it wasn’t practical for me to go to university. So I started work as a cataloguer at the Antique Porcelain Company, moving on later to Christie’s, before getting married to a GP and giving up my job to bring up our children in the country.

Becoming a barrister didn’t seem possible. Especially after spending eight years as a doctor’s wife in Suffolk. I thought they’d be so many constraints. I mean, I didn’t even have a degree. But I looked into it and found out what I’d have to do, the kind of skills required, the grants that were available. And I concluded that I did, in fact, have a chance. So, at the age of 37, I found myself beginning a law degree at Essex University.

Let fate take its course. During Bar School I secured a pupillage with Atkin Building, the construction law set. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take it up because I found out that I had cancer. While recuperating from the treatment, I started working as a clerk for the CPS. It was meant to be a stop-gap, but I found myself completely bowled over by crime, an area which I hadn’t previously considered. So when one of the barristers I’d been assisting offered me a pupillage, I didn’t hesitate in accepting.

Welcome back to square one. Yes, I’d been used to a more senior role at Christie’s, but I can honestly say that I didn’t mind going back to the bottom of the pile and doing the lesser tasks reserved for pupils. It’s a new career and you have to be willing to learn.

Still, it helps to be alert to potentially embarrassing situations — and to develop strategies to deal with them. I was aware, for example, that it would have been awkward for barristers who were younger than I was to ask me to make them a cup of tea. I also knew that tea-making was a part of my job at that stage. So I’d always try and get in there first, offering them a cuppa as I enquired about how their case had gone that day. “Oh, yes, lovely — thank you!” they’d say, pleasantly surprised.

Accept that people will have prejudices about you because of your age. It’s natural that an element of the recruitment process favours the young. After all, chambers and firms want people who they can manage and nurture, and of course, get some decent mileage out of. I’m sure some chambers looked at me and thought, “Well, we can’t nurture her, she’s already nurtured a couple of children herself.”

Of course, being middle-aged also has its advantages. You feel at ease in your own skin and bring with you all your knowledge of the world. Compassion, effective communication, thinking on your feet . . . it all comes more easily when you’ve got a bit of experience under your belt. In one way or another, everything helps — from breaking the news to somebody that their porcelain vase wasn’t worth selling, to the time my husband’s patient insisted on dropping his trousers to show me his hernia. So when you step up to the bar to make that first speech to the jury, you’re not necessarily all that apprehensive.

And looking older than the other baby barristers certainly does you no harm. Clients, solicitors, even judges, would often assume that I’d been doing the job for years, simply because they saw an older face. Being afforded that little bit of extra respect when I was starting out was rather nice.

Having my family to fall back on gave me great security. I couldn’t have done it without a husband who was not only able to support us all financially, but was willing to put up with me traipsing off to uni, being stressed, arriving home late from distant magistrates’ courts . . . My children were also great, giving me invaluably honest feedback on my early attempts at advocacy. I remember trying out openings on them, and watching as they rolled around in fits of laughter and threw pillows at me, shouting, “You’re so pompous mum!”

I still have to pinch myself to believe how well it has worked out. Although there have been occasional moments –—such as when a man, who objected to my cross-examination style, drove his BMW at me in the car park at Snaresbrook Crown Court — where I wish I’d opted for a quieter life. Overall though, the decision to start a new career has resulted in a wonderful 20 years.

Lynsday Hayhow is a barrister at 3 Temple Gardens, the chambers of John Coffey, QC, where she specialises in criminal cases. She was formerly an expert in 18th-century European porcelain at Christie's, the auctioneers

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