Today has definitely been the best day so far. Even though it didn't get off to the best of starts! Continuing from my dilemma last night about which court I was going to, I arrived at Waterloo bright and early at 08:08 and found a quiet tucked away corner to call chambers. Sure enough...no answer. There was no anrglswer until 9:05am, by which point I was SO tense it was unbelievable! After speaking to the nice man at the other end of the phone it was established I was off to Thames Magistrates Court, happy days!

So after a nice ride on the District Line (considerably shorter then yesterday!) I arrived deep in cockney London, Bow Road, where the court is located. After meeting the barrister I was shadowing which went suprisingly to plan, the day's proceedings commenced. A man who had breached his unpaid work order by not turning up and was back to be punished for it, a boy who had done the same thing, and a man who had burgled a shop and needed a 2 hour magistrates trial made up our work for the day. Obviously I can't go into more detail on the actual cases due to confidentiality, but it has given me a very real insight into the life of a junior barrister practising in criminal defence.

Its a soul hardening experience being in a magistrates court all day, other than the 2 hour gap in the middle where I took a saunter on the DLR (Docklands Light Railway) for the first time IN MY LIFE and explored docklands London, a very interesting place! I must say, off topic I know, but there are few weirder feelings then being a train with no driver! EEK! Anyway, back at the magistrates, the trial went fairly smoothly, other than the court being ridiculously quiet...I wonder why?! I'm sure that England's football match had nothing to do with it at all!

Snaresbrook Crown Court made a bold decision by deciding not to sit after 1pm so that nobody would miss the action, no such luck at Thames Mag's, although...there was a severe shortage of actual Magistrates, again...I wonder why?! So they were sitting in benches of two as opposed to the usual three, not a massive difference but it did look odd having one empty chair up there!

That's really all there is to say about today I'm afraid, other than the little non-important things like me nearly dying of excitement when I was introduced to a client as a trainee barrister and then introduced to the court clerk as counsel (a posh word for barrister). Is it sad that this was the highlight of my day?

So a happy trip back to Waterloo and then a VERY busy train home, which made me laugh in its own right. The 17.35 South West Trains service from Waterloo to Southampton, Bournemouth, Poole and Weymouth via about 30 places along the south coast is more like a social club than a train! I ended up having a nice chat about football and all kinds of other things with a group of businessmen and a girl that looked totally bewildered by the whole scenario! I think this exchange was the highlight...it's worth pointing out that rather a few miniature bottles of wine and cans of stella had been consumed by this point:

Man 1: (Shouting) BOYS....BOYS....WHO DO YOU THINK IS THE BEST DEFENDER IN ENGLAND?

Man 2: (Also Shouting) VIDIC!!

Man 3: He's not English!

Man 1: YEAHHH!!

Man 2: THATS NOT WHAT YOU SAID...YOU SAID THE BEST DEFENDER IN ENGLAND, VIDIC IS IN ENGLAND!

Man 1: Well...I think its John Terry

Man from other end of carriage who stood up and shouted: "YEAH BUT JOHN TERRY'S A KNOB!"

This was met with a murmer of approval from everyone before calm was restored. Nice.

And so to tomorrow...I am off to the Court of Appeal Criminal Division in the Strand tomorrow...how exciting! I have yet to visit here with an actual purpose other than just going to watch so that will be another experience to tick off! I will say at this point, if anyone reading this has any questions about mini-pupillage or anything like that, feel free to send me an email! jack@traineelawyer.com

Ciao!