Radical set's grand style is the envy of the Bar
By Frances Gibb
Garden Court Chambers says that it is sticking to its social ethos - despite its £9 million makeover
RADICAL SETS of chambers were traditionally to be found in scruffy cramped buildings — the lack of plush fittings a testimony to their ethos and focus on the poor and disadvantaged.
No longer. In what is perhaps the most ambitious move of its kind 2 Garden Court — now renamed Garden Court Chambers — has bought four buildings dating from the 17th century in Lincoln’s Inn Fields for £9 million (this includes £2 million for refurbishment), to become the biggest and most prestigious new site at the Bar. Yet this is not a top commercial chambers — 90 per cent of its work is on legal aid.
In some ways the move marks a coming of age, both for Garden Court under joint heads Owen Davies, QC, and Courtenay Griffiths, QC, and for radical sets generally. Places such as Cloisters, Doughty Street, Tooks Court and more recently Matrix are no longer seen as “fringe” or the awkward squad with problem cases that no one else wants and plenty of pro bono. Pro bono remains but commercially Garden Court Chambers is up there with the rest and poaching top names.
Last week Garden Court took on David Spens, QC, a leading criminal silk and former chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, one of five new criminal practitioners (see Trading Places). A further batch of recruits is planned. Colin Cook, senior clerk and only black senior clerk of a big set in Britain, is bullish. “We are 88-strong and plan to grow to 130 — we want to get better, and better and better. We hope to attract instructing solicitors nationwide, who will find it difficult to ignore us . . . we want them to start having a look at us . . . both City firms and high street firms.”
Understandably the chambers’ mood is buoyant. The 35,000 sq ft Grade I-listed buildings — next-door neighbours are Farrers, the Queen’s solicitors — are spacious and elegant as well as modern. There is a library, state-of-the-art video-conference room, a vast relaxation room, 24-hour security, car parking for clients, lecture and seminar rooms, shower rooms and even a gym where t’ai chi classes take place. There is hot-desking and plenty of individual rooms — many still vacant.
Davies says: “Let’s have no illusions — there was some nervousness. We are paying double in chambers’ expenses what some others pay. But it has been a huge boost for morale and enabled us to do so many things we’ve always wanted to do — a lot more in-house services, meetings, forging links with charitable groups and political organisations . . . we have become a vibrant think-tank and community.”
There is plenty of history: a previous owner of one of the houses was Spencer Perceval, the only English Prime Minister to be assassinated, in the lobby of the House of Commons in 1812. Dickens wrote that Tulkinghorn, the lawyer in Bleak House, occupied another of the houses, where lawyer dwelt “like maggots in nuts”.
So how can they afford it? Cook admits it was a long haul to persuade barristers to take it on. “We’d been looking for new premises for a while and seen other places, but then this came up. I must admit I wasn’t sure at first — I thought, don’t we want something all steel and plate glass? But I am a total convert.” The finance involved most members pledging a sum of money through a self-invested personal pensions scheme or SIPPS. The tax benefits of the scheme will be reduced from April so other chambers could not benefit to the same extent. If barristers leave, the others buy out their share. It means that chambers’ overheads run at about 21 per cent of earnings. But the figure should reduce in time as more barristers come on board.
The set does general common law: criminal, civil, including immigration and housing, and family, there are separate clerks’ rooms with 13 clerks for the three main streams, as well as an administration section of 12 who handle human resources, marketing, IT and accounts, and even a permanent office maintenance man complete with his own workshop in the basement. Annual turnover is £12 million.
For Cook, 43, it is something of a personal triumph. He has seen the fortunes of 2 Garden Court wax and wane as the Bar’s radical sets regrouped over the past two decades. The son of a carpenter, he left school in Forest Hill, South London, at 17 with five O levels and after one year of A levels. He shone at sport and played basketball nationally. But after a holiday stint with a law firm someone suggested that he become a barrister’s clerk. “I said — what’s that?”
A barrister took him under his wing and he met the clerks and “got dragged into clerking”. Interviews followed and then a first job offer. “There was discrimination in the Eighties — very much so. But I’ve never let that kind of thing stand in my way or bother me. I just deal with it — I don’t run off crying about it.” In 1981 he moved to 2 Garden Court, where there were black tenants. “They were very receptive, very nice and then, as now, it was all about social justice and human rights.”
There were a couple of hiatuses, when some key names broke away to form first Doughty Street and then again to create Matrix (the latter including the Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald). “It is very upsetting at the time. You feel betrayed and take it personally. And the other tenants become despondent. But we’ve come back stronger. I’m an optimist — I always knew we’d survive.” By 1989 he was senior clerk and is now on a six-figure salary. Since then he has regretted missing university but taken a postgraduate diploma in management and then an MBA, both part-time.
“Things are better — there’s a lot more political awareness. Ten years ago, left-wing chambers were regarded as on the periphery and talked down by the rest of the Bar. Now they are the envy of the rest of the Bar.” Already the chambers’ plans to capitalise on its facilities, with seminars and lecture series planned. Some are charitable events but it hopes also to recoup income from letting rooms.
Its strategy goes farther, however. Cook is eyeing fresh horizons from his new empire. “I’d like to break into new market- places — we are progressive enough to market ourselves to such an extent that we will get that work. We’ve not got an iconic building so they are looking at us to see if we will survive the next year or two.” And, he believes, the core legal aid work will continue — despite the Government’s forthcoming review. “We ’re going to stick to our knitting — but with a new twist to our ethos of social justice.”
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