Barristers -v- Solicitors

Barristers and solicitors have a long standing and well-established rivalry. Now that solicitors may represent their clients in court, and barristers' age-old monopoly on advocacy has been broken, what – exactly – are barristers for?

One answer is this: to break bad news to clients. Few solicitors really like to front up to the client about how rubbish their case is. After all, they might go somewhere else, and find a more sympathetic ear, taking with them all those lucrative fees. Law is a business. Without clients, it's all just academic.

Far better then to get counsel to break the bad news, and explain to the luckless client how useless their case really is. Meanwhil, you can show how disappointed you are that counsel isn't taking a more robust view. After all, someone needs to be the bad cop, and it need not be you.