My Brief Career: The Trials of a Young Lawyer by
Harry Mount
pbk out July 06
(Short Books)
at £6.99
This is Harry Mount's account of his year as a trainee barrister in Inner
Temple where he suffered a level of boredom that makes the average
office job look like fun. Worse, the pecking order was such that almost
everyone ignored him so he had only his thoughts - and the Anglo Saxon
banter of the workmen employed by the Inns - for company.
Mount also encountered the madness of legal tradition when he dined in
Hall and found that he couldn't even go to the bathroom without the
beadle's permission. He recognised repeatedly that the law is an ass.
Both humorous and illuminating in turn, My Brief Career has only one
failing - at a mere 170 pages it's far too, er, brief.