However, the reason I hate them at the moment is for the hoops i have to jump through to qualify. Every trainee solicitor (for that is what my job title be) has to work in 3 areas of law, and at least 1 of these has to be dull… i mean “non-contentious”. And so, I have been seconded out to Coventry to experience 4 months of conveyancing. This means wearing a suit every day, and spending 8 hours in an office staring at bits of paper. There’s just nothing interesting about the work at all.

What happens when someone is buying a house, is that he or she will work out what property is available, at the price they can afford, and whether they want to live in a small town overrun by heroin smoking teenagers. They will then instruct a solicitor to check out the property legally. This means they check that there’s no outstanding debts or obligations attached to the property, that there isn’t going to be a nuclear reactor built in the field next to you, and that you will actually be able to get from the public highways to your front door.

Thrilling so far, don’t you think.

But that’s more or less it. And to do this pant-stiffeningly exciting job you have to do approximately 700 different forms, each specific for a single task. There is even a form to tell the Government that you don’t have to pay them any Stamp Duty… You can’t simply just tell them if you DO have to pay anything, that would be too simple.

At one point yesterday, I was sat in a presentation and I was so bored, I think a fifth of my brain decided to just die. I had the most horrendous headache, and was forced to just sit there and endure death by powerpoint about HiPs (Home Information Packs… don’t ask, it’s just too depressing to even begin to contemplate). To make matters worse, My right arm then decided it would rather twinge in pain than sit and atrophy. All this, while some surveyor basically said “We don’t know what we are going to have to do in 3 months time when these buggers are compulsory.”

Bring back my glory days of burglars, smack-heads, and suspected kiddie-fiddlers. Actually… just the first 2 please, as I hate having to argue with the police about how computer memory caches work!

The first thing about being asked this is that EVERY TIME, my new found friend/associate/drinking partner will say “You must get asked this all the time…”.

YES… ALL THE BLOODY TIME, SO WHY ARE YOU GOING TO BE SO PREDICTABLE AND CARRY ON THIS CRAPPY CONVERSATIONAL CUL-DE-SAC????

But no, it’s a fairly innocuous question for you to ask. The big decision for me is which answer to give you. This may depend on how much i’ve had to drink, what kind of day I’ve had, and whether I actually want you to like me.

So the first answer will be something like this: I believe it’s the unalienable human right of every person to have their case heard, and that I am part of a dedicated profession that affords each person legal advice to ensure they are treated fairly whether they are guilty of a crime or not.

Alternatively, I will refer to a couple of specific cases where the police have made a witch’s tit of the investigation, or the defendant is genuinely innocent and had been set up by the victim/one of his mates/the police again. I’ll tell you how this happens more than the public realises, and that my job is to be an essential check and balance to the ever increasing powers of the fuzz.

The final answer, which I must confess I have never actually used, but have it saved in case I am in a scuzzy mood, is as follows:

I don’t really care what they are accused of, or whether they are guilty or not. I get paid either way, and I am actually pretty good at irritating the police, making the CPS look incompetent, and giving my pet scumbag a fighting chance at fooling a jury into returning a not guilty verdict. I enjoy it, I’m good at it… and if I get a result for them, they will instruct me again when they do something else. And it’s always nice to have violent people who owe you favours.

Now let’s face it. If I came out with number 3, you wouldn’t chose to buy me a drink would you?

So next time you have the pleasure of meeting a defence lawyer, do them (and yourself) a favour and don’t ask the question!

Strangely though, whenever I’m near to Liverpool they don’t ask me the question. They just ask if I have a business card they could have. Go figure!