Translating barristers’ language

The Secret Barrister tries to help a work experience student understand criminal court proceedings at Translating barrister-speak: A beginner’s guide.

For example, ‘My client has had the benefit of robust advice’ translates as ‘I have told the stupid dildo REPEATEDLY how utterly rubber ducked he is’.

Legal cheek decodes what a supervisor says to a supervisee.

For example, the supervisor says ‘I hear what you say’, the supervisee understands ‘He accepts my point of view’, but the supervisor means ‘I entirely disagree and do not want to discuss it further’.

This does ring very true.

2 thoughts on “Translating barristers’ language

  1. ‘My client has had the benefit of robust advice’ – I wonder whether non-Criminal Counsel – North (Advocate) or South of the Border (Barrister) – acting for the Chairman/woman/person of a multinational corporation in a civil or diesel emissions fraud case would use that coded expression.

    In a non-supervisory context, the only times English/Welsh Solicitors have said to me: ‘I hear what you say’ is when I later discovered that what they meant was: ‘I don’t understand the legal (or tax) point you are making and am oblivious to the case(s) you are citing, so I’ll need to look everything up in my own good time. Even then, there is no guarantee that I will have the savvy to grasp the point’.

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