The Apotheosis of my Profession
March 27, 2008 by VM
Dear Diary,
How long it is since I have seen my ink spurt forth on to your virgin page. I am afraid that, as I age, it becomes more difficult to summon the tide of literary output which once, without effort, flowed tumultuously across your pure cream face, like a skier carving a turn on softly fallen powder, or a city solicitor carving a noseful similarly.
Also, I have been rather busy.
But, dear Diary, tonight I have been privileged to see an example of what a barrister can be like. From his penetrating stare to his delightful little soul-patch, Nicholas de Lacy-Brown shines forth as something to which all can aspire.
Nicholarse has the lot. From the time at which he put the boot into his team leader and allowed Raef to take responsibility for it; to his last-ditch insistence that being unable to work out 30% of a total and then add it on to the original price to produce a profit was not his fault but someone else’s, Nick was supreme. Never mind that commercial work would appear beyond our boy - Nick can sneer with the best. And, of course, Nick ensured that the viewer knew he was a barrister. This, apparently, gave him an edge. Other contestants quailed at the thought of facing Nick in the Boardroom.
Thus it was that when Nick appeared to fight for his survival I leaned forward in my chair and drew a deep breath. Dear Diary, I must report that if I were ever on trial at the Bailey (say for allowing Tucker to go and see Mr Greeklawyer and discuss how to preserve Mistress Ruthie’s honour), and (as will all too soon be the case) the government kindly picked my barrister for me, whether I wanted him or not, I would pay a very large sum of money to ensure that Mr Nicholas de Lacy-Brown was engaged in a case in the Isle of Mull Sheriff’s Court. Better still, Nick could prosecute. Even Sir Alan’s sidekick (female version) was moved to remark that he ‘did not make a very good job of defending his position’. Compared to what was being said chez Maiden that ranks as a generous tribute.
Nick has a website. It is not, of course, as interesting or thrilling (or even literate) as this one. However it reveals the following exciting information: “However there is much more to Nicholas than could ever be ‘revealed’ in a ‘reality’ TV show; he is a brilliant musician, fluent in Spanish, a successful property developer and business man, has a pupillage at one of London’s most prestigious barrister chambers and, of course, is an artist.” Dear diary, I have left the text in its original colour to allow you to appreciate the true genius with which we are dealing. I entirely agree that Nick, ‘of course, is an artist’.
Apparently Nick feels that his ‘outstanding’ achievements and his ‘allergy to chavs’ qualify him for a brilliant career at the bar. He says that from the moment of his birth he was destined to be noticed. Dear Diary, I have noticed him. If someone would kindly inform me of the location of his pupillage I will also notice that set of Chambers. And I shall continue to notice Nick as he continues his one-man experiment to ascertain whether self-confidence and academic merit can stand in for humility and self-knowledge. I may, of course, have a view about the outcome for, in a remark which enshrines his personality, Nick’s response to being given the Order of the Spanish Archer (I put the matter this way in deference to his mastery of Spanish) was to say, “I am glad to have saved my reputation which I will need to become a lawyer.” Or not.
I have always been at the forefront of those who would protect Ruthie’s honour. Of fairly close to the front, certainly within earshot of the guns. You may stand Tucker down.
As for Nicola I think he is delightful: but can I be the only person who thinks that his pupillage is imaginary? If you were on the pupillage committee would want to be locked in your chambers with that? It seems unlikely.
I am too annoyed with this man to post.
come on guys - he’s a spoof.
My Dear VM,
God help the legal profession if he is a real barrister.
Ms R was highly amused at Nicola who appeared to have more front than Selfridges but, alas little substance or charm. and frankly what good is a man who cannot discuss sport? She is pleased to say that she won money by betting that he’d be first out at the beginning of the programme.
Ms R was rather taken by the young project leader Alex whom Delacy (you gotta love it) accused of lacking in culture and education. Ms R certainly knows whom she would take to bed with her and it would be young Alex and the other tall good looking one.
Priceless television - but as others have noted, it’s faintly worrying that the pupillage committee at ‘one of London’s most prestigious chambers’ (as all the reports put it) had brain-fade to the extent that they considered Nicholarse De Luded Dipstick to be a good candidate for pupillage.
I’m with Geeklawyer on this - is anyone brave enough to admit that it was their chambers that took on De Poncy Bollock-Head? I know he’s got an Outstanding in his Bar finals, a Distinction in his LLM and so forth…but isn’t it the whole point of an interview stage that you can tell the bod who looked so good on paper but who turns out to be a child of Satan in person that he’s to sling his hook?
I’d be interested to know what happens to him from here on in. Assuming that he does have a pupillage, what are his chances of tenancy, given that yesterday’s debacle will have made him the laughing-stock of the Bar? Will those taking him on take heed of the conspicuous lack of advocacy skills, the ridiculous facial topiary and the all-pervading pseudishness, and reconsider? Most pertinently, perhaps, what’ll happen when he pops up for his first second six appearance for a client who’ll have zero confidence in him, against someone who’ll no doubt be able to trade on De Lacey’s utter pillockness?
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I spent the whole episode itching to rip that funny little stuck-on bit of bumfluff off his chin - and I cringed to the point of hiding my face in my duvet when he bemoaned the educated-uneducated riff.
The blurb on his section of the show’s website reveals that he added the ‘de Lacy’ to his name “because he felt it sounded more sophisticated”. This guy can’t be for real! Someone spill the beans on his chambers - commercial’s not my thing, but I’m guessing he ate six months’ worth of FT and regurgitated it in the interview?
Whoever took him on for pupillage was either fleeced, similar in outlook, or none too clever. I am hoping it is the first.
And if he really had two brain cells to rub together he wouldn’t have gone on the apprentice- that will ensure notoriety for all the wrong reasons. I’d love to be a fly on the wall of his first appearance in front of a judge. Or indeed his opponent. I needn’t even say a word as I’m sure that the large plum in mouth will surely cause chokage.
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See the Lawyer website - he was taken on at Crown Office Chambers, apparently he got interviews at 18 sets first time round but not one offer, which he blames on Oxbridge bias…nothing to do with his personality then…
Is it a coincidence that his pupillage is at COC?
Crown Office Chambers!
http://www.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=131896&d=415&h=417&f=416
It’s Crown Office:
http://www.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=131896&d=415&h=417&f=416fice: V
Poor/foolish them!
Correct me if I am wrong, but aren’t Crown Office a Civil Set?
I thought bieng able to do sums was quite an important part of civil work - unless of course Mr Nicolarse knows something that the rest of us don’t……
Barristers doing sums-that’s a good one
i thought the solicitors had to do the sums… that’s what i’m banking on anyhow. almost as much as i can do to add up the numbers post commenting at geeky’s place! should perhaps get a solicitor to do that….
The fact that he has a civil pupillage explains his rather random and out of place comment about submissions of no case to answer.
If he needed 18 interviews to get pupillage, after this he’s going to need quite a few to secure tenancy!
Thank god for this - rather polite I might say - description of Nicholas de Poncy Brown-nose.
I only stumbled on your blog in the hope (now fulfilled!) that someone would have come close to expressing what I feel about possibly the worst advertisement for a legal career I have ever seen.
I’m an antipodean lawyer in the UK, and wasn’t sure whether to laugh. cry, throw up or hand in my practising certificate after viewing this pathetic deluded creature on the Apprentice. A barrister who can only talk to educated people - my god, what do they teach at KCL!
Personally, the best barrister I ever briefed had been a logger (i.e. lumberjack) for 20 years, and took up law after a back injury. He certainly knew his Tottenham from his Hotspur and his kilos from his pounds, and the clients LOVED him, and everyone else lived in terror (ok, his clients were more the smacked off their nuts type that would eat our beloved Nicky for breakfast before a bail app).
But, as a state educated common-or-garden solicitor it was lovely to see the snootiest representative of the inbred so-called cream of the profession (the thick and the rich, that is) get the Sugar-sweet treatment.
Thanks for letting me vent!
Mind you, you have to admit that Raef is just as bad in an amazingly smarmy, oily git sort of way.