QC in waiting: Christopher Boyle
Barristers who applied for silk in the latest round have learned their fate. Here, successful QC applicants answer questions about life at the bar, the silk process, and which actor would play them in a film
Christopher Boyle
Name: Christopher Boyle
Set: Landmark Chambers
Call: 1994
What was your first-ever job?
Draftsman emanuensis for architect with delirium tremens.
Which barrister most helped shape your career? Why?
Invidious. I could name five key individuals past and present to whom my gratitude is unbounded.
Which case was your most memorable as a junior barrister?
Hatchfield Farm, Newmarket (I still bear the scars).
Why did you apply for silk?
Ask the Walrus.
What was the most challenging part of the silk application process?
The form requires a distasteful degree of self-promotion.
What’s your biggest work/career mistake and what did you learn from it?
Reading jurisprudence at Oxford; entirely unnecessary for practising at the bar.
What’s the toughest thing about your job?
Remembering names: witnesses, cases, clients.
Where will you celebrate taking silk?
TBC.
If you weren’t a barrister what would you have been?
Broke.
What book are you currently reading?
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne.
If a film was being made about your life, which actor would play you and why?
James Mason (dec’d).
Readers' comments (2)
Tristram Shandy's nose | 28-Feb-2013 5:23 pm
It is evident that reading Jurisprudence at Oxford does not preclude misspelling amanuensis.
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Architect in recovery | 13-Mar-2013 2:35 pm
It is also evident that responsibility for the misspelling has been attributed to my learned friend and not to the publisher. It was a sad day for us architects when Mr Boyle left for the bar, but we wish him well.
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